


Nowhere to Stand and Now Nowhere to Hide

by deathmallow



Series: The Long Road Home [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 51st Hunger Games, AU, Alternate take, Dark, F/M, Fleurs du mal, Gen, M/M, OCs - Freeform, Other, Pre-THG, Welcome to Mentor Camp, he was something of a looker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haymitch returns to the Capitol to start his first mentor year and learns that for victors, it can always get worse.  Semi-AUish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
>  Banner by the amazing Ro-Nordmann!   
> 
> 
> Warnings for violence, death, murder, children killing children, bloodshed, cursing, drug use, alcohol use, the use of President Snow, general creepy Capitol people, underage and cross-generation sex, and forced prostitution. You know, the usual standard happy Hunger Games fare.
> 
> Rated M mostly for a lot of dark themes; it's not likely I'll get terribly explicit.
> 
> Spoilers for some things revealed about Haymitch's past and about victors in general from "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay".

He’d been back to the Capitol before, on the Victory Tour that was enough of a nightmare. Though to be honest, he thought it was far worse in Nine, Eight, Four, Two, and One, trying to make remarks that somehow politely skirted the blunt obviousness of _So your kid didn’t come back because I actually killed them_. He hadn’t known their names then, because all those names in a field of forty-eight were just a blur, but he knew them now. Vetch, Lea, Esca, Remus, Aurelia, and Sapphire held pride of place in his nightmares along with Maysilee and Ash and Briar and his mother. He could practically feel the hatred boiling at him in One for the girl he’d killed with cleverness and her own axe, the girl they obviously thought should have won. In every district he found somewhere for just a little space before dinner because after the crowds and the speeches, he needed to be alone. The dusty dome of Eleven’s Justice Building. An empty pasture in Ten covered in clover. A clifftop in Four and he threw rocks just to watch them splash in the water below rather than flying back to his hand.

He survived the Victory Tour and the empty house in Victor’s Village. But standing at the reaping was worse yet because that made it all real and set in stone, that his year was done and every year now for the rest of his life he’d be going to the Capitol with two kids and at least one of them wouldn’t be coming on back. Wouldn’t take much to beat the current record of forty-six years between District Twelve victors. He stood there on the stage and wanted to be anywhere else. If Maribelle Donner in the seventeens or Briar’s little sister Hazelle in the group of fourteens got called, he thought he might actually throw up. But Larkspur Taylor was the same year in school he’d been in anyway, the tailor’s quiet daughter who did well at math, and he didn’t know her well but he recognized her so it was bad enough. Ash wasn’t in the twelves, of course, he was buried in the graveyard, though Haymitch would trade six years of anxiety at the possibility of having to mentor his little brother as a tribute just to have him back alive. The name was called and Dean Gordon was twelve and Seam and reminded him of Ash too much anyway.

He spent the train ride to the Capitol desperately racking his brains for anything to tell them, how to give them anything useful in the space of a week. He had the sense his frustrated agitation was just making them more nervous. He could teach them a few skills, sure. In that short a time he couldn’t teach them how to survive, how to have that instinct for it. How to look at the Cornucopia and the terrain and their speed and that of the other tributes and in the space of less than a minute, be able to judge the risks versus the necessity of its rewards. How to know when to hide and when and how to confront. If he had five years or more like Careers, he could definitely have made something of them. As was, he was grasping at straws. 

President Snow called him in as he delivered Larkspur and Dean to the stylists for their prep before the chariot rides, out into the sun-drenched rose gardens surrounding his mansion. He walked the cobblestone paths and tried to not stare at the blossoms of white and red and pink and yellow, remembering the white rose left by the shed as his childhood house in the Seam burned, and the enormous condolence bouquet that arrived the day of the funerals. He tried to not breathe in the thick, heady scent of roses because in his head it would always mix with the thick iron smell of blood.

In a way he’d have preferred the way his last interview with the president went, in the office with its huge granite slab desk on a raised dais, no chairs, oppressive dark wood and half-drawn shades. There was no pretense in that place, meant solely to intimidate and impress. The weird informality of this little garden set him on alert already, and so did all those roses. “Welcome back to the Capitol, Mr. Abernathy,” Snow said with that lizard-eyed, thick-lipped smile, as Haymitch paused five feet away, seeing him clip blossoms from the bushes and put them in a basket slung over his arm. Out here like that, he looked like a middle-aged man with the charming hobby of gardening, not the evil incarnate who annually made child murderers and child-murderers, not the judgmental god who’d burned Haymitch’s family for making him look stupid. The harmlessness of all of this unsettled him, and it set his spine tingling with a shiver of awareness. “I imagine you’ll find your return here will be one of open arms and we’ll all be watching your first tributes with great interest.”

“Y’all really do love a victor around here,” Haymitch agreed neutrally, trying to not let his eyes flick to the pruning shears and wondering if he could wrench them away and kill the bastard. He decided it wasn’t going to happen, unfortunately, given that he could count at least four Peacekeepers with a good line of sight and twitchy trigger fingers. “Why, I might even pass muster around here, now that I’ve grown up a bit from your usual underfed Twelve trash.” He felt the hot satisfaction that despite whatever growth treatment they’d apparently pumped in him to put his height up to a pleasing Capitol standard while they stuffed his guts back in and scrubbed off his scars, he’d stopped at five ten and stubbornly refused to gain that last inch or two they wanted. It felt like a little victory.

The eyes narrowed and studied him like a mouse ready for devouring. “You seem to still labor under the impression that constant insolence passes for cleverness.”

“Smart enough to outwit your Gamemakers, wasn’t I?” He could afford to mouth off. Snow had killed everyone in his life already. There was a strange freedom in that, having nobody to protect. He didn’t see any point in bootlicking and fawning like they both didn’t know who had set that fire. Twelve might buy it was an unfortunate tragedy. Haymitch didn’t. The roses spoke loud enough.

“I would have hoped you’d have taken your lesson regarding the consequences of insubordination to heart. It appears not.” Snow at least did him the credit of assuming he had the brains to understand what had happened and why.

“From where I’m standing,seems like you’ve got nobody left to kill for me, so why not be honest with each other here?” For Ash and Briar and his mother and their dying like that being reduced to a simple dismissive lesson, he was raging inside, filled with the need to prod and goad and fight, to not just bend his neck and mumble what was Snow wanted to hear. _Yes, Mr. President, sorry for the trouble, I’ll be a good boy now._ “Capitol folks didn’t exactly like me for my politeness, after all.”

Now the smile spread like hot butter in the sun, oily and thick. “Dear boy. For all your pretense at nonchalance, you certainly formed an attachment to the Donner girl easily.” _I see through you_ , his eyes said.

“She was cute, she was from home, and she spent close to two weeks helping me in the business of not getting killed. I call that plenty of incentive to like her.” The ever-present cameras had already stolen more than enough of whatever it was he and Maysilee had, and he wasn’t going to pull it out for Snow’s satisfaction. He could keep up the pretense at indifference all damn day here, determined that Snow had already made him bleed on camera for all of Panem, so he damn well wouldn’t see him sweat. His hands were clasped behind his back by this point and with his right thumb he was nervously rubbing the braided leather band Ash had given him as a district token last year. He didn’t like the look on Snow’s face. It spoke too much of satisfaction, of smug assurance of having something in the bag. “We were allies. It’s not like we were busy fucking each other for your little cameras.” He deliberately said _fucking_ , being the crude uncivilized boy from barbaric District Twelve against this man and all his smooth veneer of civilization and sophistication. 

It got the desired effect. He caught a faint look of distaste of Snow’s face. This was a man who sent kids to carve each other up on television and the word _fucking_ made him looked like he just bit down on a sour green berry. “Anyway, I already had a girl back home, didn’t I...at least until she somehow forgot how to go out the front door of a burning house.” He wondered if the door had been barred shut or if somehow, mercifully, they’d already been dead or unconscious. 

He waited for the acknowledgment, needing to hear him just say outright and open, _Yes I did it, I had them killed_. Nothing about lessons or a demonstration--simple admitting to murder. Instead, Snow snipped another rose and asked him, “Are you still a virgin, Mr. Abernathy?” Casual as asking if Haymitch liked mint tea or whether he thought it might rain today.

That pretty much ground Haymitch’s mind to full stop for a second. “What?” It took him a few seconds to recover and pop off the smart remark. “Gee, I don’t think you’re my type, sir.” Did the man even have sex? Snow apparently had a daughter, so apparently he had the juices to get it up in there somewhere, or at least he had at some point. 

Another of those little dry as dust smiles. “Nor are you mine. I asked you a question. The courteous thing to do would be to answer.”

“No,” he spat, not sure why he lied but not willing to give him even that much information. Before he got reaped, he and Briar fooled around enough like a couple of randy teenagers would, but they hadn’t done it, not all the way. He was sure the Capitol had about a million ways to deal with it, but about the only thing in Twelve to prevent a baby was a tonic a girl had to take every day. The apothecary made it clear he didn’t hold with selling it to irresponsible horny Seam kids who shouldn’t be having sex anyway yet because they weren’t old enough for a job so they shouldn’t risk making more brats they couldn’t feed. So about the only thing to do was hold on till eighteen and a job because nobody wanted to risk having a kid while they were yet of reaping age. There had been a boy last year from Nine who already had a wife and a baby at home. Haymitch clearly remembered a few years ago another girl in the Games with a big belly. It was rare but it had happened. Typical Capitol response: five minutes of cooing in sympathy and then switching gears, looking at the young mother or father with the greedy glint of speculation, wondering just how much harder that baby would make them fight to live.

Snow nodded and neatly tucked the pink-edged yellow rose in his basket. “You are, I see.”

Feeling the heat flaring in his cheeks, Haymitch asked through gritted teeth, “Is there a point to this?”

He turned to another bush and examined its blossoms, touching it tenderly as a parent to a beloved child, not even looking at Haymitch while he spoke. It made Haymitch want to go yank the entire thing up by the roots. Maybe set it on fire, set the whole garden on fire. “Understandably, given there being no other living District Twelve victors, some of the life of a victor here in the Capitol during the Games will not have been made clear to you. Most Capitol citizens have never met a victor from Twelve. You’re a Quell victor. And your endgame tactics aside, the tragedy of Miss Donner has made you the subject of some interest. You also possess a certain, shall we say, rakish charm in your way. In short, you’re new and novel and thus may expect to be quite popular here in the Capitol.”

_And this has to do with my sex life how?_ “Thanks for the concern. I think I can fend off the screaming fans with designs on my precious virtue.”

Snow ignored his comment. “While in the Capitol, in addition to your duties as a mentor to your tributes, you will be expected to serve as an ambassador for your district. People will express interest in having you as a guest for social events. You’re already committed for the public festivities the night before the Games open--all victors in the Capitol will be present. There will be other events like that. However, there will also be more private affairs from Capitol citizens that you will be invited to attend. My office will inform you when something is scheduled. You’ll go to those engagements, Mr. Abernathy, and do whatever your hosts expect of you. It usually demands social intercourse. It may well involve sexual intercourse. You’ll be a gracious guest in either case and satisfy them.”

Put plain as that, there was no misunderstanding it, and Haymitch’s eyes went wide. No, he hadn’t expected that. Ideally he would have had some smart and defiant remark ready to sling right back. But he’d been hit, full stop. He’d thought having his family murdered was as low as it could sink in terms of punishment, that having taken his licks he could just hide from Snow as much as possible for the rest of his life. Seeing what he had thought was safe ground crumble, watching another gulf open up right before his feet and being told he’d be expected to jump in threw him. So instead what came out was a panicked thin childish whine, “You can’t, I mean, you already killed them...” He hated himself even as it grated in his own ears, because there was that smirk again when Snow heard how he’d knocked him off balance.

“In retrospect perhaps I should have left your brother alive,” he shrugged. “However, be that as it may, there are others. You’ll learn obedience, Haymitch, at whatever cost you choose. If you refuse, I turn first to the sisters of your two ladies. Maribelle Donner and Hazelle Wainwright. I can have them killed. I can have them tortured. I can have them turned into Avoxes. I can have them reaped.” Anyone in Twelve hated a sense of owing. But to the Donners and the Wainwrights, there couldn’t ever be repayment for the two girls who died simply because they hitched their star to him and in the end he failed them. He would owe their families a debt for the rest of his life, and already owing them far too much like that, he could hardly cause them more sorrow. Snow saw that and he grabbed Haymitch right in the blood-guilt and gave it a twist, trusting it would bring him to his knees. He was right. Haymitch felt himself swaying already. But the old man went on, ruthless and cold and overwhelming as a blizzard, talking blandly about murder and torture while he gently handled those roses. 

“If you remain stubborn after them, you have old friends. Burt Everdeen. Jonas and Lorna Hawthorne. Reema McPhee. Murray Gunnall.” His eyes bored into Haymitch like coals as he recited the names, telling him that he knew his weak points. “You also have some cousins on your mother's side. If you still persist, District Twelve's Head Peacekeeper may be replaced with someone who quite favors the lash and the noose. Tesserae rations may sometimes be unfortunately slow in delivery. Coal quotas may increase. The reaping bowl may have a bad habit of picking only twelves and thirteens who mysteriously will never find a sponsor. And you’ll look at all of it, Haymitch, with the knowledge that your people suffer for your choice. You and I are both aware your sense of obligation to those of your particularly clannish little district will overcome your pride long before I run out of those I may use as persuasion. So I suggest we skip your usual habit of bleating token defiance at me and you simply agree it’s inevitable.”

He looked and saw no forcefield, no chink to exploit to escape this. They might not be his family but all of Twelve was clannish, like Snow said, and their lives were hard enough already, and he couldn’t make them hurt more for his sake. Some in Twelve already knew about swallowing their pride like this and if they could do it simply to have food to eat, he had few excuses for not gritting his teeth. 

He remembered being a little kid and his mother going out after dinner, coming home late in the night and quietly putting coins in the old lard can or food in the pantry. She cried a few times, when she thought he and Ash were both asleep and didn’t hear. He wondered if this was how she had felt that first night, looking at some Peacekeeper’s door, not wanting to knock but knowing she had to do it. He wondered if she’d felt this same thing, this despair and shame and resigned inevitability. He wished she were there, that he could talk to her because she’d understand. But she died, because he refused to die by their terms. 

So they’d made him a killer last year, and now they’d make him a whore. Well, at least he got the far worse stain out of the way first. He simply nodded, tight muscles and clenched fists, not trusting himself to speak.

“Very good. Once the Games begin, you can expect no engagements while your duties as a mentor are required.” So in other words, training time was fair game but once the gong sounded, so long as his tributes were alive, he was off the market. 

He turned to go, willing his feet and his knees to be steady. He looked back over his shoulder, unable to resist one last jab. What shreds of pride he had left demanded it. “You didn’t mention payment. If you’re making me a whore, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to get paid.” He dared the man to deny the word, to try to substitute it with some pretty euphemism like _companion_ or whatever. They already called a bunch of murderous walking dead _victors_. 

He should have expected the man had a ready slapdown answer for anything he could say. ”What gifts your patrons may give are yours to keep. As to payment, it’s being given in advance. I think the continued security of the people of District Twelve is more than sufficient. You asked that we be honest with each other, Haymitch. So we have been. You’re no longer an ignorant child. Follow the rules or else the consequences will be harsh.” With that he stepped forward and tucked a white rose into the buttonhole of Haymitch’s lapel, marking him like a dog pissing on its territory, breathing that blood-rose breath on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, it's technically AU. But easy enough for Haymitch to lie to Katniss on that point if it was something he didn't want to discuss, and he's proven he'll lie to her.
> 
> I do think Haymitch's explanation in "Mockingjay" of "Snow killed my family and he had no leverage to use" could unravel pretty quickly when you think about it logically. At this point, Haymitch is young and good-looking and probably pretty popular from a novel Quell victory, which we've seen from Finnick's story, means he likely got plenty of Capitol interest. He's also potentially dangerous because he's proven himself a bit of a rebel in the arena and with his family dead he really has nothing to lose by misbehaving, so it's probably to Snow's benefit to get him on a leash even more than someone like Finnick who has immediate family to protect. It would also make him that even more profound example to other victors in his punishment--lose your family and still be expected to submit to prostitution.
> 
> And for someone like Haymitch who we see in the books form some deep feelings of attachment and obligation, as Snow points out, there's always more leverage to be found...


	2. Chapter 2

After that nice garden chat in the afternoon with President Snow and the debacle of the chariot rides later in the evening, he didn’t want to eat dinner that night. Nothing seemed to tempt him, not the rich lemon-sauced goose and the creamy blue-veined cheese, the fluffy white biscuits and the tart melon sorbet. “Are you all right, Mr. Abernathy?” He looked up at Honoria Delight, the District Twelve escort. Same eerily blood-red lips as last year and the years before, but the color theme this year was buttercup yellow, from her dyed hair to her impossibly high heels. _At least it ain’t candy pink_ , he thought. “You’re not eating and you’re sitting there with that scowl and upsetting The Tributes,” she told him in a too-loud stage whisper.

The Tributes. They were always “The Tributes”, capital letters obvious in her prissy tones, to her. He’d been just one of The Tributes last year before he won the honor of having an actual last name to her by not getting killed in the arena. She obviously didn’t want to bother learning the names of kids who’d be lucky to make it to the top twelve. She’d been with Twelve for what, five or six years now and it was obvious she was hoping Haymitch’s victory would have gotten her bumped up to something better. _Yeah, well, join the team of not getting what you want._

He glanced over at Dean and Larkspur and yeah, they were staring at him. He wondered what kind of expression was on his face. “Nah, just not hungry tonight.” They looked shocked now, like he’d turned into something bizarre right in front of their eyes. He cursed mentally when he glanced at their plates and saw they’d pretty much been licked clean. Of course they had. This time last year he couldn’t imagine turning down a free meal, saying he didn’t feel like eating. Last year he’d eaten every day until he almost puked it up, amazed by the food. It was the only thing he’d liked about the Capitol, that feeling of being full. 

In Twelve unless it ran away first, it got eaten, and here he was ignoring a whole table of food. A year of abundance had already chewed off some of his edges, turned him away from the boy he’d been and he didn’t like it one bit. That wasn’t something Snow took. That was something he’d apparently let go without even thinking about it. “Actually,” he allowed, reaching for a portion of the goose and then for some of the biscuits and some honey, “take that back. Sorry. Got caught up in my own head, didn’t realize how hungry I was.” The two of them looked relieved now and eagerly dived in for seconds.

Then Honoria herded them all towards the television for watching the recap of the chariot rides. He didn’t see why they had to watch them again. He’d been there in the stands at the Avenue of the Tributes watching the horror of it live. Unfortunately, Terricia was still head stylist for Twelve, just like she had since Haymitch could remember. He remembered last year riding around the Capitol in a pair of very brief shorts, a miner’s headlamp, and leather work gloves. Gloves, when his ass was practically hanging out. Then there was the black and grey paint streaked on their skin to represent coal dust. They’d all looked at each other, knowing this made already pathetic Twelve look even more ridiculous. Poor little twelve-year-old Heather didn’t even have any breasts yet to fill out the skimpy top the two girls had. She just looked scared. Dylan, who actually had some physique to show off in that get-up, just stood there in glowering silence. As for him, of course he had a smart remark ready. _At least coal dust flatters our coloring_ , Haymitch had smirked to cover his own anger and discomfort. Glancing at Maysilee he added, _Well, except for you, merchie girl._

She’d glared at him, given poor weeping Heather a hug, climbed up into that chariot, tilted her chin up stubbornly and said, _You lot coming up here so we can get this crap over with?_ That was maybe the first moment he realized for a merchie, the girl had grit.

He’d sat there surrounded by Capitol citizens who were checking him out just as much as they were the fresh meat on the Avenue, calling his name and some of them eyeing him in a way that made him sweat after that talk with Snow. He tried to take some mental notes on the competition as the chariots passed, but he had to admit only the Careers really looked good this year on first glance. He was also wondering if chances were the Career districts would be pretty pissed they didn’t get it done last year with four bites at the apple rather than the usual two. After a year when they didn’t win, they tended to come back unusually savage and driven the next year.

Then came Twelve, and just like he had in the stands, he stared now at the thin black and yellow sashes wrapped around them that made them look like a bad attempt at bees. What wasn’t wrapped was painted with yellow and black paint, even their faces striped into unfamiliar, almost inhuman masks. It looked even worse in closeup on television than it had live on the Avenue. At that distance, and with the lower resolution of the giant screens out there, he hadn’t seen how the thin fabric and the mountain chill gave a tantalizing peek at Larkspur’s nipples. He could certainly see it now. So could all of Panem.

Dean just sat there, miserably silent. Larkspur just shook her head, looking down, cheeks bright with shame. He felt embarrassed for them both. He looked over at Terricia. “Uh, so what’s the thought behind this year’s getup...?” He stumbled his way through that, trying to find something noncommittal mostly because he really wanted to say something like, _Last year was probably the tackiest but that’s the ugliest shit I’ve seen yet from you._ Or maybe, _Can you go a year without resorting to body paint to not-cover things?_ Or maybe, _Is fabric really that expensive that you can’t cover more than about ten percent of a tribute’s skin?_ Or maybe, dark with a new kind of knowledge, _So tell me, are you trying to sell them before they’ve even won?_

Terricia, sitting there with her wild chartreuse mane of corkscrew curls, dreamily said, “Oh, I was aiming for the sheer contrasts of Twelve. The foreboding darkness of mine shafts and the hopeful rays of a miner’s lamp. The fact that she’s blond and he’s black-haired just played into the theme so nicely!”

He stared at her, at the unsettling doll-like eyes that were too big for her face, then looked back at the television so he wouldn’t say something stupid. How anyone could say that with a straight face and think it was brilliant was beyond him. Then again, how this place could be sick and insane enough to parade half-naked kids around for the masses to leer at before making them kill each other was beyond him anyway. He wondered if Terricia was going to get called on to make him something for Snow’s little appointments. Might as well send him naked. It would be more honest.

Just then Honoria happily chirped, “Oh, now here’s dessert!” Haymitch looked up to see a slim blond Avox girl carrying in the tray. He was relieved, because it spared him from having to say anything more right then.

The girl set a bowl down in front of him, a blueberry crumble, and distantly he heard Terricia saying mischievously, “Looks like someone in the kitchens remembered you telling Maysilee that’s your favorite.”

_In the Justice Building with Briar hugging him with all her wiry strength, wanting to bury his nose in her hair smelling like soap and sunshine, telling her he’d be OK, after all, she taught him the difference between blueberries and nightlock when they were both eight. “Bad idea on my part, Hay. You always hogged every damn blueberry you could find after that.” Her Seam-grey eyes were locked on his and even as they were saying those snarky things for the Peacekeepers standing there he knew all the love and the fear was right there in that glance._

_In those too-perfect woods after Maysilee saved his life, pawing through a big packet of food and water their Capitol mentor had convinced someone to fund now that they had shown they were deadly contenders. They grinned at each other, excited by the abundance like a couple of little kids. “Hey, that one’s got blueberries? C’mon. Anything else you want you can have, but blueberry’s my favorite.”_

_They killed Lea, and later that day Maysilee stitched his arm up and then she kissed him on the cheek and he didn’t tell her off for it. A pot of blueberry jam came with the warm crisp-crusted bread in the parachute that dropped barely a minute later. They ate it in silence, thinking of the dead girl and thinking about a boy and a girl at home and not quite looking at each other._

_Coming back from the woods, he’d sent Ash on ahead a couple hours before with the rabbit so their ma could get started on it. He’d picked a gallon of blueberries and she’d make dessert with them, and he knew his fingers and lips were stained purple from eating some as he picked. One last dinner and one last night in the old Seam house before the place in Victor’s Village was finished up tomorrow. He smelled and saw the smoke as he ducked the fence and then the bucket of blueberries was on the ground, and he was running fast as he ever had, fast as he’d run to the Cornucopia. The old dry wood and years of coal dust made the house burn like a torch. He heard them scream in agony while they burned and it took him a few moments to realize it was him that was screaming._

He made it to the bathroom before the goose and the biscuits made their reappearance, burning their way up his throat. Swallowing down a dry heave, he looked at his trembling hands, where they'd scrubbed off the caked-in blood while they were fixing his gut wound, where they’d scrubbed off the burn scars for his Victory Tour. Willing them to steady, he gargled some water to rinse out his mouth, wiped it with the back of his hand and went back out to the living room. 

“Just get to bed soon,” he told them quietly. “Gotta get your rest. You start training in the morning.” Dean gave him a hopeful look at that. Larkspur just shook her head and gave him a faint smile as if she didn't think much of that as advice. Yeah, well. He didn’t want questions and he didn’t want company, so he turned to leave. 

He went up on the roof, bouncing a rubber ball off the forcefield there, throwing at different angles, and then moving to catch it. He’d done that last year too, after he discovered that forcefield existed. If anyone had watched it, they might have thought it was unofficial training: conditioning, reflexes and hand-eye coordination, whatever. Really, it had been a stupid game mostly just in the interest of pissing away an hour or two and burning off his nerves and frustration. That was before Maysilee dragged him to her room and started teaching him chess so they both had a distraction. He forgot all about the forcefield after that until he accidentally kicked that rock off the cliff.

He lobbed the ball particularly hard, missed the catch, and turned to see Larkspur scoop it from the air. She flipped it right back to him with a neat flick of her wrist. Too bad she didn’t have six months or so to learn to throw knives with an arm like that. “Any advice for training?” she asked him simply, arms folding across her chest in the cool of the evening.

He sighed. “Learn anything you can,” he told her. “Survival skills especially. I doubt they’re gonna do a poison arena two years in a row.” That would be highly unoriginal and upset the poor Capitol folk. “Try to pick one weapon and get as good as you can with it. A build like yours,” he looked over her willowy frame, “I would not suggest a mace. You’ll keel right over.” 

Her lips twitched up in a little smile, and it did wonders for her solemn, almost prim merchie face. “If they’ve got shears I’m pretty wicked with those. I ‘accidentally’ stabbed Morrey Clark in the hand last month when he tried to kiss me and I was holding them at the time.” 

“Ah, Morrey of the wandering hands?” The mayor’s son, who according to both Briar _and_ Maysilee never met a girl he didn’t want to chase and who never met a “no” he didn’t think he could overcome. “Good on you. They ought to give you a medal for services to the district.” 

“Except that’d require the mayor to be on board with it,” she said, the first hint of humor coming into her face, shyly and tentatively, like she’d never dared to be cheeky before. “And I would have to admit I did it on purpose. That could be a problem.”

“Are you kidding? For all we know he wants to stab Morrey too. Besides, we’ll protect you if you get in trouble. We’re Twelve. We stick together.” Suddenly they were both laughing and for right then he felt lighter than he had in a while. They were here and he was going to have to sell himself on Snow’s orders and in a little over a week she’d either die or kill people in the business or surviving, but this right here was something the Capitol wasn’t going to touch. _We’re Twelve. We stick together._ He’d said it so casually but he felt the heat of the words in him, and the comfort of it. Twelve and its people had been there for him in the last year, ever since Snow took his family. Right then and there he knew he’d try to do whatever he had to in order to help keep her and Dean alive.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning he saw Larkspur and Dean off to training, giving Dean pretty much the same advice he’d given her the night before on the roof. Seeing the worried pucker of the boy’s brows, the fear already starting to develop, that part of his mind that had last year learned to ferret out weaknesses told him, _He’s dead from the start, cut him loose and focus everything on the girl_ , but he shook it off with an effort. He was mentor for them both. He owed them equal attention, equal effort at bringing them home.

Just how to go mentor wasn’t exactly something they’d covered. There was nobody back home to ask. Nualla Clearly had won way back in the 4th Games, back when it was all about Capitol satisfaction slaked with blood rather than the spectacle it was now. She’d walked out beyond the fence six years later. Never came back. Considering with as hard as the Peacekeepers had been back then, from stories he heard from the oldsters, he was pretty sure she hadn’t had the benefit of a wilderness education like him, she must have left knowing it was a death sentence from starvation or exposure or a predator out in the woods. But she’d left anyway. Left Twelve behind, left all those tributes that came after her to the whims and mercy of an indifferent Capitol mentor who never bothered with hopeless Twelve tributes. Even he and Maysilee hadn’t gotten squat in sponsors last year until they took down three Careers and proved they were a force to be reckoned with.

He hoped to hell sponsors weren’t as essential this year. They’d all lived and died by them last year, survival skills made totally useless. To be the one responsible for that, pleading and wheedling money out of Capitol citizens, pissed him off. Begging, that was all it was, and even the poorest Seam dweller hated charity, hated the loss of pride, hated owing. But he’d have to do it anyway. Though how that worked--did he just go out on the street and start grabbing people and shilling for his tributes or what? It wasn’t like he knew anyone here yet. He let out a sharp bark of laughter as he realized chances were he would know some Capitol folks all right, unpleasantly soon.

With that frame of mine, it seemed like an additional kick in the ass that Yelena Farthingale, who was apparently Snow’s Coordinator for Victor Affairs, called the telephone in Haymitch’s room. _Victor Affairs_. Oh, Haymitch definitely loved that one, except he was pretty sure there was no way the potential biting wit of it was deliberate. That was giving too much credit. Ordered to report to one Taffy Locke, he decided he’d at least go do this stoic as he could.

He’d barely stepped out of the Training Center when he caught a happy shriek of “Haymitch!” and a teen girl with her dark face etched with gold-white tattoos was tugging her parents over to ask for his autograph. “I just loved you last year,” she gushed, eyeing him with something uncomfortably close to adoration. “The way you took out that boy from District Two...amazing. I got Mom and Daddy to help sponsor you after that.” She turned to her father and nudged him with an elbow. “I told you he was a contender, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Pernia,” Daddy said with an indulgent smile. “It looks like you know how to pick a winner.”

Scribbling on the picture of himself, one taken in the studio during his interview with Caesar before the Games, he glanced up at the mention they’d sponsored him. “Thanks,” he said, actually somewhat meaning it. They might well be silly morons, but whatever money they’d thrown his way had helped keep him alive in one way or another. The thought crossed his mind and he gave a shot at it. Why not? “I’ve got two tributes from Twelve this year, and if you’re looking to back another winner, well...”

“We’ll have to see how their pre-Games go,” Mom said hastily, interrupting him. “We couldn’t commit to a sponsorship of an unknown, you understand, particularly from a district that isn’t known for much return on the investment.”

Once the moment of temper at her talking about kids’ lives in terms of investments passed, he saw immediately that it had been a pretty clumsy move on his part. So apparently this wasn’t the way to go about getting sponsors. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He handed back her picture. At least Pernia’s eyes were still full of worship, even if her parents’ expressions had rapidly cooled to polite nonchalance. “There you go. Happy Hunger Games and all.” He’d botched that pretty royally. First lesson was apparently to not sound desperate.

With that turning over heavily in his mind he caught a taxi to meet this Taffy Locke. The whole ride he was wondering what kind of woman was the one to have the first crack at buying him. Old, ugly, surgically altered beyond belief to a freakish spectacle? All of the above?

So when he knocked at the door of her apartment and she opened the door he was a little surprised. He didn't much care for judging ages, considering everyone in the Seam aged so fast and everyone here in the Capitol kept aging at bay like it was death itself. He’d guess she was thirties, fortyish, and attractively caramel-skinned. The honey-colored streaks in her brown hair might have been natural, sun, or dye. She had only a hint of cherry pink on her lips and a little bit of green eyepaint that made her gold-speckled green eyes seem heavy-lidded in a sensual kind of way. “You’re Haymitch Abernathy.” She sounded almost surprised to see him. Was that a District accent or just the absence of the posh tones of the Capitol? Interesting. He wasn’t sure exactly what one it might be. They’d all sort of blended together on his Victory Tour. He could pick out an Eleven drawl compared to Twelve's native twang and that was about it. 

_You sent for me_ , he almost said crossly. Unless he’d been bought and sent as a surprise gift or something. Did they do that: happy birthday, have a joyride? “That’s me. Reporting for du--” Realizing his usual balls-and-sass approach probably would get back to Snow when she complained he didn’t seem happy, he cleared his throat. “That is, I’m here.” Getting stripped of that defense felt a bit like being naked in the worst way already.

She waved him in, nudging aside a few childs’ toys along the way with her feet. He sincerely hoped there would be no child here in the apartment while this happened. At least his ma had always done her best to shelter him and Ash both from her second job. “Your kid at home?” he asked, not liking how tight and anxious his voice suddenly was with the question.

“What? Oh, no, my boy’s at school right now.” Leading him into the living room, she told him in that mild, husky voice, “Go ahead and get your clothes off,” he felt that sick feeling churning in his gut, feeling the jaws of it close around him, gentle but the pressure of being trapped still unmistakable. Moving past her, he slipped off his jacket and tugged at his shirt buttons. He was glad at least there was no pretense at seduction here, but let himself have just enough of a spark of anger for right now to keep his fingers from shaking. 

Oddly, she didn’t watch him strip off. She was engrossed in something on her desk, and he wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or pissed off. She finally glanced up when he had his fingers hooked in the waistband of his shorts, ready to tug off that last bit of clothing and get it over with. She waved a hand dismissively. “No, that’s all right. You can just go ahead and leave those on.”

Now he did raise an eyebrow, wondering what the hell was going on here. While he was standing there in his shorts, arms dropping to his side as he wasn’t sure of what to do next, she circled him, looking him up and down, tugging his arms up at one point. When she quit that, she stopped in front of him. Her fingers, long and callused at the fingertips, tipped his chin up, turning his face this way and that so she could study him keenly. “You’re still a boy,” he heard her mutter in something like disappointment. Well, she ought to know what she’d ordered up. Everyone in Panem knew he was sixteen when he was reaped. It had been displayed on his tribute profile. Wasn’t like he’d suddenly aged years since then. At least not in body.

She stepped back and looked him over again. Then she spoke up, chin propped thoughtfully in one hand. “Probably haven’t grown into your own height yet, let alone whatever I imagine growth treatment stacked on.” At his startled look, not sure how she knew he’d been subjected to that, she gave an oddly gentle smile. “You’re probably a good three inches taller than you were last year, if I judge it right. And you’re too thin right now, so I doubt it’s all natural growth.” He glanced down at himself. Couldn’t count his ribs by any means, but apparently by Capitol standards he was too lanky. He’d still been eating much better than he had in his life for the last year. “And you ought to let your hair grow out a bit. It’s too severe for you right now. But you have good bones, and I imagine as you get older you’ll fill out nicely.”

“So I don’t pass muster,” he said with a little bit of heat, unable to help it, because her staring at him and criticizing like that, especially in that soft, almost distracted voice, was its own kind of humiliating. “I’m too skinny and too young and my hair’s too short and I don’t have glittery skin or whatever it is you want. So why don’t we call this... _thing_...done and I leave?” That option sounded pretty appealing to him. He shouldn’t be this angry at being rejected. But it was the way she’d made him stand there, looking at him, coolly listing off his faults. Just like the preps had last year, chirping they might actually turn him into something presentable with great effort.

Now she was the one staring at him, startled. “Glittery skin would look horrible on you, you know. You don’t have that whole dreamy, ethereal air going for you.” After blurting that, she shook her head quickly back and forth, as if shaking something loose and clearing it. “Right. Sorry. I think we got something wrong here. I’m not your patron, Haymitch. I’m the stylist for you to attend...special engagements.”

 _So basically you’re the stylist to Panem’s fanciest whore,_ he said in his mind, itching to say it aloud, and debated asking her just how someone got that particular job. “So you’re here to dress me up pretty for my... _patrons_. Got it. I figured I already had plenty of clothes for that.”

“Oh, _that_. If I had my way I’d burn every single thing Terricia Devonian ever created. Her chariot costumes?” The wince made it clear how she felt on those, and he tried to not smile at that, wanting to like her for it at least a little. “As for your wardrobe? Boxy lines, heavy fabric, too big, too loose. You look like a boy dressed in your dad’s clothes. At your reaping, I could understand why you looked like that. You wouldn’t have had any better then.” At his reaping he’d been wearing clothes borrowed from his mother’s mining crewmate Randell Coultree. He’d grown too much for the clothes he’d worn the last year and they’d long ago gotten rid of his father’s clothes, sold or turned into rags or quilts. 

“But she seems to have taken that and run with it as some kind of ‘signature style’ for you. Even with the simplest shirt and trousers.” She nudged the clothes on the floor with one sock-clad foot. “No exception there. Also, neon hues look terrible on you.” He wasn’t going to disagree there, but when his closet at the Training Center was full of nothing but the likes of lime green and aqua blue and tangerine orange, not like he had much of a choice, no matter how much it hurt his eyes simply to get dressed.

“To be fair,” he said dryly, “Terricia probably isn’t used to designing an entire wardrobe. When you get Twelve, seems like you’re destined to be more of a chariots-and-interviews-only type stylist. And that’s, well, the splashy stuff. Everyday stuff probably seems boring in comparison.”

“Well, you don’t need splashy. The Games stylists are costume-makers. They create to make an arresting first impression. You don’t need to make an impression. People already know full well who you are. What you need is _clothing_ , not a costume. Clothing that emphasizes your attractive qualities.”

“Considering I’m too skinny, my haircut sucks...” he started again, this time half-joking. She cut him off with a flick of her hand, gesturing him to a chair. He perched on it carefully. 

“You caught Panem’s eye by being something different. You’re clever. You’re witty. You’re fearless. It’s a kind of mental daring and sophistication they don’t ever expect in a boy from a rather quaint place like Twelve. Nobody knows quite what you’ll say next and how they’ll have to scramble to keep up with it. That plus your status as a victor makes you just a bit dangerous to know, Haymitch, and they adore it. So we play to that. We give them this presentation: you’re forceful and confident enough that you don’t need to dress gaudy to attract attention. You scorn being in season with fashion because you think it’s pretentious and you don’t care about petty little rules like that.” He raised an eyebrow, thinking ignoring a few petty little rules in the arena was what had gotten him this deep in the shit in the first place, but secretly enjoying the idea of cheerfully and rebelliously ignoring something that was pure Capitol. “So...something simple, timeless. Clean lines. Mostly dark colors--elegant, good with your coloring, a little edgy.” She grabbed a sketch pad and a pencil and started scribbling away.

Caught up as he had been in the notion of burning the current contents of his closet and how easy it was to listen to her quiet, soothing voice, he’d forgotten why he was there. It suddenly came back to him and he hunched over, elbows on his knees, all the good feeling drained away in a hurry. He tried to not think about it.

After a while she handed over the paper to him and he glanced at the quick sketch of a fitted, knee-length coat over trousers and a vest, marked with some random notations and numbers he didn't quite understand. The tie would confound him. He could make the knots of an elaborate snare but coming from the Seam, nobody ever taught him how to tie a damn tie. After he ignored them on the first two stops on the Victory Tour, unwilling to admit he didn’t know how to deal with one, Terricia gave up trying to wrestle him into one. “Nice,” he said shortly. He didn’t know much about clothes to begin to tell if it looked good, and any enthusiasm he might have managed was gone when he remembered why he’d be getting dressed up like this.

“That’s for when you’re a little older, I think. It’s too formal for you right now; it’ll make you look stuffy rather than sophisticated. What do you think of the next one for now?” she asked. He flipped the page and after he took it in, his eyes flicked over the top of the page to meet hers. 

“You really think this is what I need, huh?” he asked her, already knowing the answer even as he asked. She gave him that smile again and nodded. “Then yeah, that might be it,” he told her quietly.

Alongside the sketch of a simple shirt, vest, and trousers, small neat handwriting said whatever she couldn’t with the surveillance: _My name is Taffeta Locke. District Eight, 24th Games. It happened to me. It's happening to other victors right now. We all know this happens. Trust us. We look after each other._

~~~~~~~~~~

After she took Haymitch’s measurements, she sent the boy on his way with a quickly altered set of shirt and trousers that didn't hang off him and a few words of advice it was safe enough to say aloud. “Keep your chin up. A victor’s company is considered an exclusive privilege. Don’t forget that, and don’t let your patrons forget it.” She gave him a soft chuckle. “With your personality I’d say they’ll even expect some of it.” The moment he started acting cheap and ashamed would be the moment they began to take him for granted. Just like they would if he got sent out in those baggy clothes, looking far too young and vulnerable. As he nodded and closed the door behind him, Taffeta picked up the telephone. She did what any victor did when faced with a problem, with something that would hurt one of them: she went straight to the top. She called old Mags. 

“Mags? Taffeta here.” She always used her real name with victors, rather than the Capitol nickname she’d been stuck with to fit in better once her contract had been bought out. “I just had a visit from Haymitch Abernathy. Bit of a surprise." Wasn't that just an understatement. Snow's office had just told her to expect a client today. She had no idea Haymitch was joining the club, thought it would be any of the numerous other victors on her client list, whose need for clothes depended how frequently they were called up for appointments. For the oldest ones, it was once a season for a long-term client, if that. For the most popular, it was multiple clients weekly. "But I have to say, after being dressed by Terricia for a year, the boy seriously needs a whole new wardrobe to be presentable.” Carefully picked words because of course someone would be listening in, but Mags knew precisely what it meant when a victor got sent to Taffeta Locke as a stylist, just what they were being groomed to do.

Taffeta thought she heard a low sigh on the other end. There was a long pause. “What’s your take? How’s he adjusting to the new role so far?” Mags asked carefully.

“He’s a bit of a snarky brat, but I think he’s tough. Seems like a good one.” They’d all seen something softer in him during the Games, with the blond girl who’d been killed by the birds. Poor young bastard. She gave the perception of him a pinch of romanticism and then a dash of tragedy, and given that coupled with everything else, people were going to want him. “Why, what’s your impression?”

“Got none as yet. You’re the first to meet him.”

“Really?” She feigned surprise, but quickly enough in talking to him, she’d had the feeling the boy had been keeping to himself. He seemed confused, out of the loop. By contrast, her first week back in the Capitol, Woof had her meeting all the other victors right away, brushing elbows and drinking with them in bars. They’d welcomed her as one of them, even before she got put up for sale. When they happened, they told her she wasn’t the first, that most of them had it happen too because in the earliest days, a victor always got sold off. It was part of the Capitol’s vengeance against the rebels. So at least when it happened to her she’d been aware, if not quite prepared. She didn’t think she’d easily forget the flicker of relief in Haymitch’s grey eyes when she wrote him that note, told him that he wasn’t alone.

“None of us other mentors have seen much as a glimpse of him.” 

“Well, he’s the only victor from Twelve and he’s only been here a day. The rest of us had others to drag us out and introduce us around, break the ice. Nobody else in his district to tell him the way of things. You know what that’s like yourself to be left fumbling through it alone. You were the first victor from Four.” She felt compelled to defend him already, even from the faint judgment implied in Mags’ voice. She’d been where he was now and it was no pretty place. She wondered about the family he was protecting at such a cost. “He might need somebody.”

Mags assured her, “Never you mind it, Taffeta. We’ll look out for him.” With that she knew at least with a hard path ahead, he would be among friends.


	4. Chapter 4

He gave up and took the sleep syrup somewhere in the middle of the night after he woke up gasping. He’d been watching Ash scream and burn in the lava flow of the volcano, held back from going to him by a thicket of white roses whose thorns dug in down to the bone and held him unable to move an inch. The syrup felt like a crutch, it did every single time he used it, but on nights like this at least then his dreams were empty for a few hours.

Apparently he slept in late after that, because the sun was full on his face when he woke up. Groggily, shaking off the effects of the syrup, he stumbled to the shower, and randomly pawed at the buttons. He’d never figure out how these things worked, and unfortunately barking at it that he didn’t give a shit and he just wanted it to turn on the water only earned another prompt to “continue selection, please”. This morning he got blasted with cold water which at least helped wake him, and he ended up smelling like cinnamon. Not the worst by any means. Last year he’d gone into his launch prep smelling like some earthy flower-and-sex smell Rutilia giggled and informed him was jasmine.

Brushing his teeth and getting the sickly-sweet taste of syrup residue out of his mouth, he pulled on the shirt and trousers Taffeta had given him yesterday. That had been a surprise. Another victor, another whore. She lived here in the Capitol and she had a kid. He wondered how much of that was by her own choice. 

Later than he thought, apparently, because when he let his room he saw Dean and Larkspur were just finishing breakfast. “Sorry.” He reached for the toast, deliberately bypassed the blueberry jam he was sure they’d made sure was there just for him, and went for something orangey-colored. “So how’d your first day of training go?”

Dean piped up first. “I did pretty good at edible plants.” He gave Haymitch a shy glance, a look that desperately begged for his approval, and it hit him like a gut punch. 

_“Did I do it right, Hay?” Ash gave him that sidelong glance, chewing his lower lip as he tied the knots of the noose for the snare. Haymitch had started teaching him that spring he was fifteen and Ash was ten. If Ash started pitching in, maybe their mother could quit with the Peacekeepers for well and good. She still had to go now and again when pickings in the woods were slim or Haymitch’s tesserae were a bit late in coming when the train got delayed a day or so._

_“Lemme see that.” He looked it over. “Almost right.” He carefully showed him where he’d done one loop wrong. Ash fixed it under his direction. “Not bad,” he said casually, and tousled Ash’s hair, which shone with highlights of mahogany brown in the sun rather than pure Seam black. Nobody ever mentioned that. Just like they didn’t mention how Blair Abernathy had been dead near to two years before little Ashford was born. It wasn’t as though Ash was the only kid like that._

_“Briar’s gonna take me out tomorrow and start to show me the plants.”_

_“Yeah, she’s the best at that.” They had all trained each other to begin, and now they trained each others’ little brothers and sisters too. He’d already shown Hazelle and Lorna about making snares last year. “Make sure she shows you nightlock first so you don’t make a mistake and eat it.”_

_“Got it. We’ll bring you back some blueberries.” Ash grinned mischievously over at him. “I think she’s sweet on you.”_

_“Shut up, brat,” he grumbled with embarrassment, knowing full well she was. He’d been busy kissing her out in the woods last Saturday. They’d had to scramble to fill their packs and get back before dark._

Ash had been five times as fierce as timid little Dean, but that look was just the same and it hurt in a dull, awful way he’d thought getting away from home and all its reminders might help stop. “Good. Make sure you know nightlock so you don’t eat it,” he said, looking away from those pleading eyes.

Remembering his failure yesterday, after they left, he swallowed enough pride to ask Honoria, “So, you know anyone who might want to sponsor ‘em?” He had to start somewhere, after all.

She raised one overly-plucked brow. “I would suggest you look to find those who enjoy betting on very, very long odds, Mr. Abernathy.” Well, wasn’t that just a helpful little ray of sunshine.

“Well, you know any gamblers?” he asked her with a too-bright smile he didn’t really feel. “Someone out there must have made out good on me last year.”

“It’s ‘made out _well_ ’, you know,” she corrected him with some disgust. “And the odds turned markedly more in your favor after you got a seven as your training score and you managed to be engaging during your interview.”

He was about to respond to that when there was a knock on the door. Well, that was a surprise; they hadn’t had visitors before. He went to go answer it. “Let the Avox do it,” Honoria called after him in exasperation, pointing towards the blond girl who as usual was apparently doing her best to blend in with the wall. “For heaven’s sake. You’ll have to learn proper conduct at some point.”

“Saves me time, not relying on playing charades with a gal with no tongue trying to get across who’s there and what they want.” He really, really hoped that look of pinched irritation was on her face, but he didn’t turn to look.

When he opened the door, he recognized the visitor. He’d been seeing her on the television for years, after all. Margaret Robichaux was a legend, and if her hair was more storm-grey than red now, those green eyes were still keen as the girl who’d won the 8th Games. She had to be near to sixty now and she looked like she could still probably harpoon something if called upon for it. 

Standing there with her looking at him he had that uncomfortable awkward feeling like when he’d been at school and knowing he was in for it for something he’d gone and done. He wondered what he was supposed to call her anyway. “Mags” seemed too familiar, never mind the announcers on television used it. She was old enough to be his granny and he’d gotten swatted enough that like any other kid in Twelve, he respected his elders. “Miz Robichaux,” he tried.

“Just call me Mags,” she returned immediately. He nodded, absorbing that. “So it got pointed out to me that as you’re our only victor from Twelve you might not exactly know the way of things. Go on and get yourself ready, we’re all having lunch together and you ought to be there.”

It honestly took him a few beats longer than he liked to decipher his way through her thick district accent, during which he was probably gawking at her. He also noticed the use of “our”, the way she already included him. “OK,” he said. It took only a minute to go back to his room, and grab his wallet. He debated grabbing the old waxed canvas jacket that about set Terricia hysterical every time she saw it. She’d given up when he told her if she got rid of it he’d just keep buying a new one. It was his woods jacket. It was a piece of home. But no, Mags had been in shirtsleeves, so it was probably too warm for it. Shoving the wallet in the pocket of his trousers, he headed out. 

They walked in silence for a little while. Finally it dawned on him why he felt like he was waiting with such awkwardness and trepidation. She’d mentored last year; he knew that. He’d seen her at the Training Center and at the studio for the interviews. She mentored pretty much every year, as experienced as she was with it. “I’m sorry about Esca,” he blurted, feeling like he had to get that out of the way. Whether or not Mags had been specifically Esca's mentor, they were both from Four. That had to mean something.

“So you remember her name.” There was nothing in that tone of voice, no clue at all.

He couldn’t look at her. “Yeah.” She’d been the first person he’d killed, the first one who’d lunged at him in that clearing. He still remembered her choked grunt as he stabbed her, the way her fingers pawed at him like she was either trying to claw him or grip on to hold herself up. He remembered her family in Four looking at him with such weariness while he gave his prepared lines about bravery and honor.

A low sigh from Mags and she said a little gruffly, “You killed them clean, boy. Only doing what you had to do. We don’t hold with giving blame for that.” Her hand gripped his shoulder for a moment, squeezed.

He saw the cameras and they were calling his name and Mags’ too, and she stopped and flashed them a quick smile, answering a question about her tributes. “Give ‘em a moment,” she advised him in an undertone, “and they’ll leave you be a bit. Otherwise they’ll follow you everywhere.” She’d lived this life twice as long as he’d been alive and so she probably knew what she was doing.

They got to the restaurant, and it looked like the entire place was filled with nothing but victors, faces he’d seen over the years. Some he’d seen win by watching their Games. Some he’d only seen in reruns. There were fifty victors, himself included, and a handful were dead already and some apparently just kept to themselves out in the districts, but he’d bet there were close to thirty of them here right now. He wondered why any of them came back here to this nightmare if they weren’t required to by mentoring or whatever murkier duties Snow might force on them.

Mags introduced him around and he tried to keep them all straight in his mind. With the younger ones, it was easier because he’d actually watched them. One-handed Chaff McCormick from Eleven who won three years before him greeted him with a “Hey, Haymitch” and a laugh. Like he’d never heard that joke in his life. Chaff’s district partner Seeder Talmadge looked a lot like his mother except for those tawny eyes, and he tried to ignore the lump in his throat as she gave him a hug of welcome. Blight Arnesson from Seven was big and gruff as a bear. Beetee Chen from Three eyed him with owlish curiosity from behind his glasses, and he stuck close to young Wiress Parker, whose greeting to him dropped off somewhere in the middle. Handsome Angus Wahlstrom from Ten gave him a sympathetic mutter of “Welcome to the club, kid,” and Haymitch had the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the victors. Clover Anden from Nine smirked playfully and told him he was cuter in person. 

Surprisingly, considering he killed off two of their tributes last year, the numerous victors from Two didn’t seem pissed with him, complimenting him on a good showing. The crowd from One were generally polite but a little cool. Well, he had bent the rules a bit and snatched the victor’s crown from their district. It at least felt honest in a way them welcoming him with open arms wouldn’t have. 

Taffeta was there too, and she took his hands and gave him that smile again. “Good to see you again, Haymitch.” She paused for a moment, looked like she was debating whether to say something. He had the feeling he knew. “I’ve got some of my team hard at work on your things. I got the word from Victor Affairs to make it a priority.” She trilled a quick too-perfect laugh. “Like any of us can tell you, there’s a lot of events coming up, particularly for mentors, and you’ll want to look your best if you’re going to be out rubbing elbows.” 

Rush job at Snow’s say-so. Apparently he had clients lined up. So he’d better steel himself to expect that call, and soon. “Yeah. It’s so nice that they’re already looking after me like this, making sure I’m presentable and all,” he said, trying his best to not put the sarcasm in there that would fit so neatly.

As he was being introduced around, he heard the rest of them in snatches of conversation and laughter here and there, and it sounded like the "we’re-all-old-friends" thing he saw sometimes on television. He wondered if it was real or if they were all just playing up for the cameras. 

For the meal he ended up sitting at a table with Mags, Taffeta, and Angus. “So how’s your family adjusting to the victor life?” Angus asked him cheerfully, drinking a glass of wine. “Carefree and enjoying the big ol’ house on the hill?”

How anyone could be that damn insensitive was beyond him. Then he realized that he’d been living a life hurting so bad from their absence for so long it seemed impossible anyone else could not know it. Everyone in Twelve knew, of course. But he’d gotten a call from Snow before the Victory Tour that he was to say nothing about it on the tour and they’d “discuss the matter further” in the Capitol. That had pretty much consisted of Snow dragging him in his office and explaining with cold precision exactly why he’d been punished, and that to discuss it with people could have “unpleasant” consequences. Nobody asked about his family on the tour. The other districts were so isolated from Twelve. They couldn’t be expected to know.

He realized his fingers were wrapped around the wooden handle of the steak knife, white-knuckled, and he was about ready to throw it at Angus. Funnily enough, the three of them saw him sitting there poised on the killing edge and unlike the times he’d reacted badly to some noise or the like back home and scared people shitless, there wasn’t a flicker of anxiety or fear in them. They just calmly kept at their business of buttering rolls and eating their meals and sipping their drinks. Forcing himself to relax, he set the knife down beside his plate. 

This place was probably bugged within an inch of its life. He’d gotten far too used to mouthing off as he liked growing up, because aside from the school, the mayor’s office, and the houses in Victor’s Village, he was pretty sure nobody bothered listening in on tiny, depressing, downtrodden Twelve. Learning to hold his tongue, to judge what to say and how to say something without really saying it, was an art he was still learning. But Snow had been pretty clear he'd better keep his mouth shut. “Oh, ain’t that the truth. They’ve got no worries now.” He couldn't wrap his tongue around a full lie without the grief of it choking him. That was close enough to count. 

They kept up the chatter, polite. He heard about Danny, Mags’ first grandkid, and about Taffeta’s little boy Cinna. He noticed that while Mags’ husband got plenty of mention, nobody spoke about Cinna’s father. Angus talked about the cattledogs he was raising as his talent. Mags apparently did carvings on bone called scrimshaw. Taffeta’s fashion design talent was obvious. “What was yours again?” Taffeta asked him.

“Oh, I ended up going with butterfly collection,” he said dryly. Angus snickered. He’d just picked it off a list, not even caring, not intending to do anything with it. The notion of killing something harmless and pretty just to put it in a glass case stuck through with a pin didn’t appeal. It struck too close to how they’d all been put under a dome to die. Though he might well be happy to kill some of those agonizing stinging butterflies from last year.

In reality, since he didn't go into the woods any more, he’d spent a lot of the time learning play his grandpa’s fiddle. To hear the oldsters tell it, Tad Dearborne had been one of Twelve’s best in his day. He’d died when Haymitch was a baby. But his old fiddle and music journal were among his ma’s things already moved from their Seam house before it burned. 

So he’d paid old Mol McCrory for some lessons, and music filled the awful silence in the house and that was a welcome thing. It was even more welcome once he improved enough to be playing actual music. He devotedly hoped whoever Snow had listening in to him had a good time enduring the hours and hours of initial screeches and wails. “But I picked up the fiddle a bit too. Played for one of my cousin’s weddings a few months back.” That gave him a ready excuse to sit there and drink cider and not dance or flirt with anyone, and that suited him just fine. It was a day he’d have rather not been among happy people in general, but he managed anyway. He still needed Twelve so damn much it scared him sometimes. Knowing he belonged, that even without family he wasn’t alone, was about all that got him through the last year.

All in all, it was actually good to get out from the Training Center by himself, and he found his mood improving some. So long as nobody mentioned the Games, and they didn’t, it was easy to forget they were all here to coach kids that were opponents. The few moments of sly black humor they got in, the pointed comments that hurt in just the right way after the arena, had him snickering along too. By the time they all broke up to go their separate ways, he was actually sort of sorry for it.

Angus volunteered to walk back with him. As he waited for him, he got a few nods and veiled sympathetic glances from those that passed by him. _Oh, hell, do they all know?_ Swift on the heels of that was wondering if they were some of the others Taffeta had been referring to yesterday.

“C’mon, Haymitch, let’s get you back.” Angus grinned at him. “Safe and sound as promised. We don’t bite. Well, except maybe Dazen.”

“Oh, fuck you, Angus,” Dazen Connington said with a roll of his eyes. Haymitch barely remembered his Games. About the only moment he remembered clearly was when he won the crown for Five by biting the hand of a Career that was about to kill him and being quick to pounce on the dagger he dropped. He’d been seven then and the sight of his bloody teeth buried in the boy’s twitching fingers gave him nightmares for a week. 

“Tempting. You know where to find me, love,” Angus said, blowing him a kiss with a smirk. Then he proceeded to shamelessly flirt with a couple of the reporters waiting outside.

The moment they were away, though, he moved closer and where there had been lazy seduction in him before now there was something purposeful, coiled tight and ready for action. “You’re clever. We already knew that much. But you’re a middling liar at best. Get better at it in a hurry or you’re going to suffer a lot more.”

“He sells you too.” Haymitch said it as fact, not a question. Angus had been wildly popular when he won the 43rd Games.

“‘Course he does. Long as they know someone still wants to put up the money, we’re all for sale. Get used to it. If you’re lucky they’ll quit once you hit twenty-five or thirty, because they like 'em fresh and young. But no guarantee of that. Ellara’s forty-damn-six years old, husband and two kids, and she’s _still_ got a client who pays for her every year.”

“And Taffeta? She’s got a kid and she lives here.”

“Poor Taff,” Angus muttered. “Once she mentored another victor to replace her, her contract got bought out. Her patron moved her here.” Now he glanced over at Haymitch again. “Your family isn’t fine and happy.” That too was said as a fact, not a question. There was no point in denying it, and there were no cameras here to hear it.

“There was a fire at my old house eleven days after I got crowned victor. They’re dead. My girlfriend too. Because of what I did with the force field.”

Angus let out a grunt of frustration. “We’d wondered what he might do to you. But yeah, you’re screwed well and good, Abernathy. He’s not just selling you because people like you and he can do it. He’s doing it to punish you.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” he hissed back, edge of his temper snapping. He'd lived the reality of being punished for not dying on their terms for the last year. He didn't need a lecture. “If you’re just here to say the obvious, fuck off!”

Cool blue eyes looked him up and down, and Angus nodded once, curtly. “Who are you protecting anyway, if they’re dead?” His tone had softened a bit.

“My girl’s sister and the sister of the girl I was allies with. My cousins. He even brought up the general well-being of Twelve.”

Another nod. “Then you can’t fail.”

“No shit.” Before he could think better of it, he asked bluntly, “How bad is it?”

A faintly twisted smile. “If you’re extremely lucky, they just want to chitchat and be awed by you for a few hours. But usually an appointment is just straight-up sex. Not always, though. They may want to hurt you. They may want you to hurt them. If you’re really, really unlucky, they may want to watch you hurt someone else.” He nodded, willing himself to just listen to this and not show the embarrassment and the horror of what this man was describing so matter-of-factly. “Still a virgin, by any chance?”

He wanted to look away, but he nodded, seeing no point in playing coy when they were being this blunt. “But I know what I’m doing. Mostly.”

“Well, the naive innocent act has a short shelf life. Maybe none at all in your case, with your sass. Talk to Clover or Chantilly if you want some brush-up lessons, but do _not_ actually screw them. He aims to sell your first time and if you get notions of being defiant and give that away free, bad things will happen. You into men at all?”

“Uh...no.” He knew about that, even in Twelve there were some men who liked men and women who liked women, but it hadn’t fully crossed his mind that might happen to him.

Something on his face must have showed his surprise at the realization, because Angus hesitated a moment and then said, “Here's the reality. You’ll have to learn to pretend you are in a big hurry, because they won't care if the idea disgusts you. Unless...” He glanced him over thoughtfully. "No, you're probably not that kind. District Twelve and all. Beating you down would be no fun. And they like you. When you get older they'll likely want you to be the danger, but not too much." 

Not understanding what he was saying there and reeling from everything that came ahead of it, it felt like getting hit over and over again, almost overwhelming. But the ruthless honesty of it was good too. At least he finally had a sense of what he was up against and what it would all mean. He understood how bad it could get; but he didn’t know, not yet. Not until it happened. “OK.”

Angus sighed, smoothed back his bright blond hair, and said, “Well, if you heard all that and you’re still standing, you might even have a chance. C’mon. Let me buy you a drink.” With that he pointed across the street to some place that looked gaudy and awful.

“It’s only two o’clock,” Haymitch pointed out, glancing at the clock in a building down the block. Did people really start drinking that early here in the Capitol? Wine didn't count. That wasn't really drinking.

He got a long laugh in answer. “Oh, hayseed, then we’re already late in starting.”


	5. Chapter 5

The call came two days later as he was trying to unpack all the bags and boxes Taffeta’s staff had delivered that morning. He answered the telephone, half-hoping it was a wrong number or someone wanting an interview or some of the other victors trying to drag him out for lunch again. Hell, he’d even take a call from the training floor chewing his ass because Dean or Larkspur had improbably gotten into a scrap with another tribute. 

Instead, Miss Coordinator of Victor Affairs told him in her sickly Capitol voice that he had received an invitation for that evening. Eight o’clock, at the house of one Gloriana Frill. He would spend the afternoon getting a medical clearance and then with his prep team.

He hung up the phone carefully, with almost mechanical movements, and glanced over the wardrobe strewn all over the bed still. 

The stuff she’d made for him was classy, fine, better than anything he’d ever worn. Dark colors mostly, which he could practically hear his mother saying with thoughtful practicality, _Well it won’t show the dirt, that’s good_. He’d never known there were so many shades of grey out there beyond coal soot and the tired, faded color of clothes back home. But along with black and white there was smoke and silver, fog and shadow. Blues, a hint of red here and there. Not a bit of magenta or peacock or electric blue to be found. 

He’d look good in these. In that moment he’d trade them and the wealth and the prestige without a second thought to be back home in school wearing an old shirt scrubbed of near all its color and faded, patched trousers. But like the saying went, wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one filled up first.

The doctor was young, with a constellation of spots too big to be freckles tattooed on his face and eerie yellow eyes. Haymitch ended up staring at him when he greeted him with a cheerful, “Well, look at you! Closest we all came to losing a victor on the table in _years_ , that gut wound of yours, and now here you stand.” Haymitch quickly followed A to B and figured this was the doctor who’d sewed him up once they picked him up from the arena sunk deep into shock. He hadn’t exactly been in a state to notice identities at that point.

“You stitched me up, huh?” Crashing statement of the obvious, but Capitol people were vain enough they loved when he gave them a chance to toot their own horn.

“Oh, no, no, no, dear boy, I’m not a surgeon. That’s Penelope’s job and she’s fantastic. But I’m the general physician for all matters concerned with victors, so I did look after you during your recuperation. Lucius Sixleigh, so nice to finally meet you, by the way. So sorry I didn’t catch you on your Victory Tour.” From the delighted way he was eyeing Haymitch, obviously he was a fan of the work they’d put in on saving him. “Digestion’s still doing well, I trust? And I see you put on some height. Very good, but not as much as you should have. Hrm. Perhaps the severity of your condition meant you didn’t respond to it as well as might be hoped.”

 _Gee, doc, pumping me full of growth drugs while I was more busy trying to not die of injuries might have made them less effective?_ “Digestion’s fine.”

“No pain, vomiting, or diarrhea when you eat, say...high fiber, spicy food, or fatty things?” 

“No.” The good Doc Sixleigh was about clapping his hands in glee at that. It made him tempted for a moment to claim Capitol food gave him the runs just to be contrary. Handing Haymitch a paper robe, he ordered him undressed. That done, then came the poking, prodding, questioning. “Now,” he said after the physical, giving Haymitch a look that would have gotten better marks for seriousness if his entire face wasn’t so ridiculous, “like every other young victor, particularly one from the rural districts, I realize there’s a lot of temptations for you here in the Capitol. We _do_ want you to have your fun, of course, but be safe at the same time.”

What was this shit? He was making it sound like Haymitch was about to go have an epic run of wall-knockers in random club bathrooms with wild Capitol girls, not get sold to whoever Snow felt like. _He actually doesn’t know_ , he realized, with something like mingled pity and disgust. _So we’re Snow’s nicely kept secret, even from his own people._ “Of course.”

Drawing blood from his finger, Sixleigh tested it to certify he was disease-free. He got a half-murmured lecture about how young people from the poorer districts so often had some kind of disease from acting irresponsible, so it was nice to see he was an upstanding young man.

Next he got a fairly large injection of something that looked roughly like green mouthwash, and a smaller one that was was piss-yellow. “What’s that for?”

“The first is annual immunizations. It’ll keep you from catching most anything nasty, though I hope you show some sense in choosing your partners. You’ll have to get a booster every year. The second’s your contraceptive. If the Games go long, you’ll have to come back for another since it’s only good for a month.”

Well. That right there explained how the Capitol took care of that problem. He wondered why Snow didn’t just make them sterile as the mules at the mines for the sheer convenience of it. Close on the heels of the question he came up with the answer himself. No, Snow probably wanted them to have kids, more leverage that way. “Yeah, got it.”

“Well, you seem like a healthy young man. Go have a good time but please don’t let me see you again this year unless it’s for another injection. The scrapes you victors manage to get into never fail to amaze me.” Sixleigh gave him a smile, and Haymitch felt the awkwardness and irritation of seeing how it was so cluelessly sincere. 

Then he got delivered back into the eager hands of his prep team. Taking his clothes off for them, he thought with a dry smile that getting naked was apparently the theme of the day for him. Time to get scrubbed and plucked and groomed to Capitol satisfaction again. Tyris grinned and told him that he’d break plenty of hearts. Rutilia shushed him. Servilia was clucking over his bitten nails. 

He just deliberately tuned all three of them out, really not in the mood to listen to their stupid chatter about how chewing on his own fingers like that was such a nasty district habit or smirking about his wooing Capitol girls.

He went back to the Training Center and endured dinner he had no appetite for, shoving in some food he barely noticed. It might as well have been eating tesserae mush. He took a snap at Dean when the kid admitted he’d spent the afternoon trying to use a sword and failed to do anything really of worth with it. Such a child, automatically going for the big heroic weapon, and didn’t he understand anything at all? “So just pick up a knife or something you can actually handle. You’ve got only a few days left to learn something useful. This ain’t playing dragonslayer out in the Meadow with sticks, so quit with the kiddie shit.” 

“Mr. Abernathy!” Honoria gasped. Larkspur just stared at him. He almost wished either she or Dean would take a snap at him, show some real spirit and willingness to challenge. It would make him feel just that bit less trepidation about the two of them entering that arena. 

He stood up, unable to stand the way they looked at him, how the pity and alarm mingled. “I’m done, don’t worry. Keep on without me.” He waved a hand dismissively, forcing himself to calm down, realizing in the instant after he said it that he’d screwed up. This wasn’t their fault. He just couldn’t go after those who deserved it. Not without someone else suffering for it. “No, I mean it. Keep eating. You both need to put on some more weight.” Apparently that was his useful piece of mentor advice for the day.

Going to his room, he got dressed: black trousers, jacket, and vest, a grey pinstriped shirt. At least Snow didn’t insist they put him in white, he thought with a nervous snicker. Glancing at himself in the mirror, he saw Taffeta had been right. Dressed in something that wasn’t baggy and ill-fitting or loudly colored, he looked like less of a kid, though his grey eyes were hardly all that young any more.

“Well, Ma,” he said softly, giving a few tries in the mirror at practicing a smile that promised everything and meant nothing, and feeling only emptiness where something like a soul ought to be, “you tried.” Not her fault he’d ended up on the same path, selling himself to keep people safe. Probably no better than he deserved, that he suffer in some way in the name of helping keep people alive. Killers like him generally had a lot of hard debts of blood and honor outstanding to answer to in the end.

He glanced at the clock, seeing it was about time to go. Going back into the living room, he saw Larkspur and Dean on the sofa. He glanced at the television, and winced. Of course they’d be replaying stuff from last year to whet peoples’ appetites since this year’s Games hadn’t begun yet. At least it wasn’t him on-screen at the moment, but big blond Sapphire from One, both green eyes still intact, neatly planted her axe in some other kid’s skull. Suppressing a shudder, he turned away. He heard feet padding behind him and looked back to see Larkspur. “Wow, you look nice.” It felt funny, being looked at with simple admiration by a girl his own age, considering how Capitol people looked at him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve gotta go out. There’s some...victor thing I’ve been invited to go to.” He smiled, trying to not give it a painful twist. “Who knows, maybe the people I meet at these things will help get you some sponsorships.”

She gave him that soft little smile of hers again and he could see that given the chance to go back home and finish growing up she’d be one of the good ones, the tender ones who did the best they could for everyone around them. Too good for this, not like him. “I know you’re under a lot of stress. This has to be hard for you to figure out in a hurry like this. Believe me, Dean and I both appreciate it. Especially given what a hard year you’ve had, your family and all.”

Oh, hell. She was the one headed for the arena in four days and here she was trying to reassure _him_. Some mentor he made. Yeah, she really was too good for the Games. At the mention of his family, he tried to not look nervously over his shoulder towards where Honoria was chirping away on the phone, praying she hadn’t heard that. It had been one thing to tell Angus, who he thought would keep it quiet. “They don’t know about my mom and my brother,” he told her in a soft undertone. “Let’s keep it quiet for now, huh? I don’t want the Capitol making some big news feature on it.”

Her eyes said she understood, imagining his need to keep his grief private, and he gave her a grateful nod, trying to not feel guilty for telling her that little white lie. Or at least, a half-truth. Just better for her if she didn’t know the full story. He told them goodnight and not to wait up, and was halfway out the door when Honoria paused her phone call long enough to shout after him in irritation to undo the top button of his collar so he didn’t look like some silly district clod. Rolling his eyes, he did it, and went to meet the car waiting for him below.

He arrived and found out that he was there as the special guest of honor for little Miss Jubilation Frill’s fourteenth birthday, a Capitol teenager who simply adored him. Feeling like he’d dodged the swing of an axe, because while being the birthday entertainment was annoying it was far from the worst that could happen, he actually managed to be a bit more cheerful than he would have been normally just out of sheer relief.

The worst that happened at the party itself was enduring a bunch of feather-brained teen girls with a crush on him. The noise and the crowding of them around him squealing had made his fingers clench a little, needing the hilt of the knife in them, needing to get away. But he smiled and nodded and teased them just a little, not letting how much he loathed them show. He endured their little multicolored lipstick kisses on his cheek and their giggles at kissing him. 

He didn’t get a knife--too bad they didn’t let him cut the cake. Instead they pressed a bow into his fingers and urged him to show off for them out in the garden. He could have said the bow wasn’t his strong suit, that his friend Burt Everdeen was the crazy-good bow hunter while he’d always been the whiz with snares and traps. He could have said that these girls seemed to know every statistic ever recited about him on television, real or faked, so they damn well knew he hadn’t picked up a bow at all during the Games. He could have said that if they wanted a show and the bloody reality of the close-quarters knife combat he’d won with was too much for them, too fucking bad. He could have said a lot of things. Instead he just took the bow and shot with it, and somehow managed to not give in to the impulse flickering in him to turn his arrows on all of them. 

Not his best shooting ever, but he at least made a decent showing of it and they applauded like he’d been fantastic. Burt would have been snickering at him and putting arrow after arrow in the bulls-eye just to show off. _Arrogant prick_ , he thought with a faint smile, missing all the old gang and missing the woods rather than being a part of this candy-bright circus. 

All in all though, it wasn’t too bad, for a stupid Capitol event. This was one he could walk away from just shaking his head and snickering. Then the girls finally got sent to bed, all hopped up on cake and punch and dreams of Haymitch Abernathy, and he was about ready to say goodnight to Gloriana Frill. But something about the look on her face, with its too-long lashes and diamond-sharp cheekbones, told him with a gathering dread that now that the birthday girl had been sent to bed with just kissing him on the cheek, Mommy here now got to unwrap her own present. _Better just get it over with_ , he thought, drinking the last of the punch and setting the glass down with a surprisingly steady hand. Now or in a week or a year, it didn’t much matter. It would have happened anyway. 

The good thing was as much as he wanted to not be there being fucked by Gloriana fucking Frill, he managed to not imagine he was with Briar, or even Maysilee. Welcome escape as that would be, he’d find it hard to forgive himself using them like that when he already owed them far too much guilt. So he accepted the reality. A woman more than twice his age, orchid-reeking skin with floral tattoos stretched surgically tight and thin over birdlike bones, a reedy high voice that kept whispering and cooing in his ear even as he gritted his teeth and said _Shut up, please just shut up_ over and over in his head.

The bad thing was that he’d been wrong in thinking that because he’d already crossed a far worse line, this wouldn’t be nearly as awful. But killing hadn’t brought any kind of pleasure with it. The confusion of his body enjoying the feel of sex and his mind wanting to just go away inside to somewhere blank and unaware made him feel dirty in a totally different way than the blood on his hands had. It made him want to peel off his own skin just to not feel it crawling where she’d touched it, where her own skin had rubbed.

After he got dressed she kissed him goodnight, slipped something in his jacket pocket, murmuring that she hoped she’d see him again. He left and much as he wanted to lean over and puke in her flower bushes, he kept walking to the car calmly as he could, smoothing down his rumpled hair.

He was from District Twelve and they knew a thing or two about keeping a stoic, steely pride. Being the hardscrabble dirt-poor joke of all Panem, they expected no quarter and no charity from life and wouldn’t ask for it either. So pride was about all the strongest of them had, the thing that put just a few chunks of coal in the furnace of the heart, sustaining a faint glow that kept a person going when everything else had been taken away or lost. It was what had kept him going after the reaping, the thing that had made him defiant and snarky in his interview. It was what kept him going still; that determination that they could never see him break down.

It wasn’t even midnight yet. He’d been gone less than four hours and it had felt like an eternity, especially the last hour of it. But now he was back in the Twelve quarters and he could take a shower, and the buttons he’d hastily pushed in his need to get in there and get clean, now sprayed the smell of roses on him. He punched the wall hard enough it sent a jolt of agony down his hand and the pain was good, it was something honest. Stepping out of the shower, he stood there to let it finish its cycle, trembling and wheezing like he’d been running for hours, bruised fist pressed tight against his lips to keep it all bottled up because the bastards had the place bugged and he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The next time he tried to program it, some benevolent power was apparently listening because he somehow managed the right buttons for scalding hot water and soap that smelled only like soap. He ran it twice more after that and if he didn’t exactly feel clean, at least the immediacy of the smell of orchids and sex was gone. 

Just finished getting ready for bed but not ready by any means to sleep yet, and not wanting to watch the Games rerun on television, he answered a knock on the door. Chantilly Forbes was standing there, victor in the year before him, all cinnamon curls and sweet doe-brown eyes in a simple primrose yellow dress. Though anyone who’d hunted deer knew they could actually be vicious bastards. They’d played her up in her interview as just a charming, levelheaded girl next door. Well, if the girl next door came from District One complete with a training score of eleven and an unusual skill at breaking skulls and crushing throats with wooden riot batons. “Hi?” he managed, wondering what the hell she was doing here at this hour.

She looked him over, the still-damp hair and the pajamas. “All ready for bed? Oh, don’t be a little old man! The night’s young,” she said with a quiet chuckle, “so get dressed and come out with us.” She leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek and given the last few hours he jerked back and wanted to punch her, but her fingers held his shoulder in a hard grip as she whispered in his ear. So that was what the kiss was for, just a few moments of cover. “We’re having a night out,” she said, “and it’s what you need right now, not being here thinking about it. Believe me.” She straightened up and added at normal volume with a bright smile, “We’ll look out for you, Mitchie. Don’t worry.”

It took him only a moment to realize that she’d been through this herself last year all while he was fighting and bleeding and starving in the arena. If anyone felt it sharp as he did, it might well be her. He looked at her and nodded. Anything would be better than not wanting to stay awake and think about it but not wanting to sleep because of the nightmares. “Come on in and give me five minutes.” He raised an eyebrow and added, “ _Tilly_ ,” not sure why he found the footing to be cheeky in return but grateful for it nonetheless. Her soft laugh followed him as he headed back for his room, keeping quiet because Honoria and Larkspur and Dean were busy sleeping. Pulling out some fresh clothes, he got dressed and slipped out the door behind her into the neon-lit night of the Capitol.


	6. Chapter 6

The club was lit with multicolored neon tube lights snaking in contorted spirals around the ceiling, alternating garish light with pools of shadow, and there was some thumping beat of a song that was playing next door that seemed to shake the walls. Glancing around, he saw someone gesturing from one of the darker corners. “And here’s our little Mitchie,” Chantilly sang, giving him a push towards them.

“My name isn’t...” He thought _Mitchie_ made him sound like one of those tiny dogs in costumes Capitol women carried around. They called him _Hay_ back home as a nickname. But then again he wasn’t home, and he wasn’t that guy, not right now, maybe not really any more. “It’s Haymitch. Mitch, if you absolutely have to,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Chantilly, putting some flint in his tone. “Not Mitchie. I ain’t a little kid.” Not after the arena, and certainly not after tonight.

A low bass rumble answered that and he recognized Blight Arnesson’s massive bulk and oak-brown hair. “Then c’mon and sit your ass on down, _Haymitch_.” He smacked a hand against the back of an open chair next to him. He did just that, and Chantilly slid into one next to Angus.

He glanced around the table. Angus. Chantilly. Clover. Blight. Angus was the oldest, his win coming seven years before Haymitch. The rest of them sitting there represented most of the victors since then. He noticed the gaps, though. “Chaff, Wiress, and...” His mind blanked for a minute on the name for the winner for Two two years before him, the one who’d won by default by surviving a tornado. “Albinus?”

“No buyers,” Clover replied in an undertone. “Chaff is too maimed. Wiress is too loopy. Albie’s from Two and he got a disaster win so he’s too boring. See? Even you didn’t remember his name right away.”

“Point taken,” he muttered in reply, but at that point Clover was shoving a glass towards him. He picked up the little shotglass and studied the poison-green liquid in it a little dubiously.

“Drink it, don’t fucking study it!” Blight grumbled. Complying, he tossed it back, then sputtered and coughed as it tasted like licorice and mint and burned its way down his throat to light his stomach into a pool of fire. A thousand times stronger than the strawberry wine back home, and he was convinced this was almost as bad as the sips of white liquor he, Burt, and Jonas Hawthorne had done one afternoon when they were thirteen from a bottle Jonas “borrowed” from his pa. 

Putting the glass down, he managed to wheeze, “Seconds?” They laughed and clapped him on the back for that, cheering his name and he couldn’t help but smile a little at it. 

A couple more shots followed. He started to feel the tension in him melt away and it felt fantastic, better than he had in days. Maybe better than he had at any point since his reaping last year. 

They made fun of his district twang. He made fun of their accents right back, rounded vowels and all. They taught him drinking games. Blight complained five-finger fillet wasn’t the same without a real knife, but the bartender had put down his foot about victors potentially chopping off fingers and only gave them a plastic jam knife. “Well, there goes his tip,” Angus snickered.

Plastic knife or not, couple of shots under his belt or not, Haymitch was apparently still an ace with a knife, hand steady as he wove the intricate pattern of stabs between his fingers, not missing a step and not nicking his fingers. It probably showed how tipsy he was already that he didn’t think about what he’d been stabbing last year, and he gave them a cocky grin when he won and they had to take a drink. 

In the last match he was up against Chantilly, and he was beating her two rounds to none, best of five. He’d watched her handily beat the others. “Y’know, Tilly, I’d almost think you’re losing on purpose here.”

She chuckled and winked at him. “What can I say? I’m mesmerized by your technique, dear. Rhythmic. Smooth. Firm and confident thrusts. Looks like you’re a real natural for a beginner.” 

He realized what she was really getting at and with that, he immediately felt himself blushing bright red, and of course on the third move of his next sequence he caught his finger. “Looks like he needs a little more practice still,” Clover said laughing, clapping her hands on his shoulders for a second and then shoving his penalty shot his way. He sighed and downed it, shaking his head ruefully but finding he was laughing along with them.

Then they tried quarters and he was terrible at it, and soon enough he lost count of how many shots he’d had to drink. Didn’t seem to matter. He was feeling pretty good, making quips and dirty jokes and earning their approval in return for them, and that was about all that mattered. 

Eventually it got on to talking about their clients, although they didn’t name names, out in public like this, or pretend they weren’t actual lovers they'd chosen. But the nicknames were enough for the rest of them to know who was being talked about and they were trading best and worst tales, and with each new name one of them would lean over and mumble an explanation to Haymitch so he wasn’t left in the dark. 

Clover’s “Scribbles” had apparently finished with her tonight in record time that she’d been able to be here. Virgil Warburton, one of Snow’s cabinet, was apparently cursed with a tiny “pencil” he liked to use at a frenzied pace, Blight supplied with unholy glee.

Humpty. Gorilla. Mossy. Cuddles. The names flew thick and fast and he learned all about them and their tastes and their odd fetishes and their shortcomings, sometimes all too literal. Hearing all about their dirty laundry, it seemed like many of the powerful and rich of Panem were a bunch of weirdos and losers in the bedroom. Getting a little of their own back like that, it felt oddly powerful considering they were all so powerless. But they of all people knew that even Secretary of District Recreation Marcella Trimble, also known as the scary, gimlet-eyed witch on television overseeing everything logistically to do with the Games from Reapings to the muttation development budget to Training Center security, was called "Cheeks" by this little circle and apparently wanted to be spanked and insulted by whoever she was with. 

“So, I heard you got a sniff at Orchid,” Angus said, leaning in with a smirk. “How is she? Still calling her bedmates 'my sweet boy'? Still needs to eat a good hearty sandwich or six?”

 _Orchid_. Of course. That disgustingly thick perfume. As to the remark about her emaciated thinness--they understood. People out in the districts who were that thin were usually starving to death. “See, it was 'my beautiful boy' for me," he said, imitating Gloriana Frill's voice to appreciative snickers, somewhat comforted by the thought Angus had been there too, that he knew exactly what it had been like. "And yeah, I thought those hipbones were going to cut me wide open,” he said, relishing the opportunity to mock her, to express in even some small way how disgusting it had felt. “Be a real shame. They did such a good job stitching me up and all--by the way, Tilly, seriously? Luxury and arts district my ass. One does _not_ give pretty wounds. What the hell gives with that?” He must be drunk, to bring the Games into it, but they didn’t look at him askance for it. If anything they seemed amused.

Chantilly snorted and knocked back another shot. “At least we manage to give out wounds, unlike Twelve.” He ought to be pissed off at that and if he was sober he might take offense at anyone insulting Twelve because yeah, it was way too easy to do. But he wasn’t sober and she was giving him a lazy grin that told him it was all meant between friends.

It wasn’t that they weren’t taking the horror of it all seriously. When it came to what they’d all endured in the arena and now endured in Capitol bedrooms, they could either laugh about it or let it cut deep as it wanted. So they laughed about it, let it come out as bitter edged black humor. It was the right kind of pain, the sort that was shared and understood, that cut the wound open and let the worst of the rot and the darkness of it bleed on out rather than gather and fester. It was safe to do it here among friends. They’d had this same thing happen to them and they had learned how to live with it, and tonight they drew him into their circle to let him see that and to help hold him up. He was grateful to them for that friendship in a way he couldn’t easily express but he thought they sensed it all the same. 

Well, he saw only one good comeback to her challenge, and he’d seen them use this one on each other to good effect. “Fuck you, Chantilly!” That earned him a chorus of cheers and raised shotglasses.

“Aw, you’re such a quick learner,” Blight said, sliding him another shot.

They walked out from the club into the glum grey of pre-dawn, and the neon signs looked drab and washed out in this half-light. Heading back to the Training Center, Clover asked him if he wanted to come in to the apartments for Nine with her. “Once you’ve had your cherry popped they really don’t care who you have on the side so long as you keep your appointments. It’s good to be with someone who’s a friend sometimes. Helps keep you sane.” 

A little startled, he looked at her, trying to run the thought of someone else touching him through his head and how he felt about that, if he could even stomach the thought of it. Honestly, he thought he couldn’t just yet. Mostly he just felt like everything was tilted and spinning a little bit. She looked back at him, and gave him a slight, self-conscious smile that really made her look younger and maybe a lot like she’d used to look before her name got called from a reaping ball one awful summer’s day. “No, not tonight, I think. It’s still all too new for you to handle all of it. But you’ll get used to it eventually.” _You mean the drinking or the group therapy or the whoring?_ he wanted to ask, but mostly, he just leaned on her a bit so he didn’t end up slumped on the pavement. She put an arm around his shoulders, patting him lightly on the back, and sighed. “Get ready for a full dance card this first year, Haymitch. It happened to us all.“ 

He about fell asleep in the elevator, leaning up against the welcome coolness of the wall and pressing his cheek to it. When he finally stumbled into the Twelve penthouse, Honoria was up and about already. “Mr. Abernathy, what’s the meaning of you walking in here at this unearthly hour and,” a squawk, “are you _drunk_? This is hardly appropriate behavior for a--”

 _Fuck you, Honoria!_ he thought irreverently, but that one wouldn’t work with her. But he was so tired of her yapping at him and he searched instead for something else that would shut her up for a little while. So with the evening before and all the raunchy jokes still fresh in his mind, he told her, “Y’know, you should really look into a good screw to loosen you up, Honoria.” Spying the gobsmacked look on her face, he grinned to himself, enjoying it, giving her a jaunty wave and heading for his room. After a few seconds of painfully slow thought through the thickness of alcohol, he poked his head out of his bedroom door and added, “And no, by the way, I’m not offering.” 

Everything suddenly lurched sickeningly and he bolted for the bathroom, managing to get there before he threw up. After that he spent the rest of the morning with his head buried underneath his pillow, groaning and feeling like someone was using mining picks on the inside of his skull.

Of course, given that he was already having a bad morning between that and Honoria glaring disapproval at him and muttering about savages from Twelve with no sense of decorum, it was bound to get worse somehow. He’d just finished some lunch when he got another phone call telling him his company was already spoken for at least once every evening for the next few days, until the tribute interviews and the big victors’ social. He just hung up the phone and went back to bed, knocking both the headache and the nightmares out with some sleep syrup.


	7. Chapter 7

The next days passed in something of a blur. He woke up, advised Dean and Larkspur best as he could. In the evening he’d get whisked off somewhere. A couple times it really was just gracing them with his presence. Most of the time, well, it wasn’t. Dazedly he realized he’d already fucked four people--no, been fucked by four people. That was more than he’d figured on for a lifetime and here he’d had that happen well inside of a week. At least they’d all been women so far though from what the others told him, that would change soon enough.

On the final day of training, they gathered up in the living room. He looked them over again, his tributes, hoping for that flicker of new confidence or the like from their training. “You ready?” he asked them quietly. “You can do this. Just a few minutes of a good show for ‘em and that can make all the difference.”

“How did you get a seven?” Dean asked in a soft voice.

He’d shown off his ability to hide in ambush and his speed with that knife once he had one sprung. Mostly he’d just hoped it would be worth something because he couldn’t show off with swords and spears and maces and his shooting with a bow wasn’t impressive enough to be his sole display for them. But up against the nines, tens, elevens of the Careers and even against Dylan’s eight, he’d faded into the background easy enough until those first kills. “Just did the best I could with what I knew I could do. Dean, play up your speed. Your ability to climb things in a hurry.” He looked at Larkspur. “Try showing off by throwing things. Knives, if you can. You’ve got a good arm.” She gave him another of those little half-smiles, remembering that night on the roof. 

He sent them on their way and turned around to look into Honoria’s disapproving face. “Well, so you’re finally taking your mentorship responsibilities seriously. Just how late were you in last night?”

He glowered at her. He took it seriously, knowing the two of them depended on him for any chance at all in the arena. He took it seriously enough that he knew he’d be worrying all damn day long how they were doing in there in front of the Gamemakers. But being sober now he realized mouthing off at her could get him in trouble and if it got him in trouble other people would pay for it, so he bit back several smart remarks. “We’re not having this discussion,” he told her calmly as he could, and went back to his room to get some sleep.

Another phone call woke him up, another appointment to keep that night after the training scores were broadcast. At least tomorrow night they’d leave him the hell alone.

They sat down together on the couch to watch it, Honoria and him and Dean and Larkspur. It quickly became apparent that Brutus Allamand from Two, big and auburn-haired, was the one to beat this year. A training score of eleven. Even his district partner only got an eight.

“I saw him in training,” Dean said, knees hugged to his chest. “He used a sword and he hacked a dummy right in half.”

Haymitch couldn’t think of anything really good to say to that because hell, what was there? _Well I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think._ Right. It was bound to be ten times worse. “Let’s just see the others,” he finally said, knowing it was a lame remark.

He marked down a couple of other standouts: Ruby from One with a ten. Spinnaker from Four with a ten. Daydra from Nine with a nine. The pair from Eleven got a six for the boy and a three for the girl and then it was time for Twelve's scores.

“Oh, here it is,” Honoria said. Haymitch tried to not remember sitting here last year feeling the anxiety of it all, Heather and Maysilee and Dylan crowded around him, and knowing he was probably screwed once Dylan pulled an eight because there was no way he could match up to that.

“Dean Gordon of District Twelve.” Dean’s picture flashed on the screen with the district seal, looking far too young. “Two.” 

Two. He looked over at the boy who looked back at him with fearful, apologetic grey eyes, knowing he’d failed. He sighed softly to himself. “Never mind,” he said, “people have won with low scores before.” It took a damn miracle for it to happen, of course, and he knew that but he couldn’t bear to think otherwise just then.

“Larkspur Taylor of District Twelve. Five.” That was at least a bit more encouraging.

“Not too bad,” he said with a nod of approval. Five was something she might actually be able to work with. It was hardly the worst score for tributes, not so high it planted a target on her either, and for someone untrained like her it was actually pretty good. The Gamemakers obviously thought she had some potential. 

“Miss Donner had a five last year and look how they underestimated her abilities,” Honoria said. Haymitch slanted her a sidelong look, a little surprised that she actually would admit that she remembered Maysilee’s name. He also wished she hadn’t remembered it.

“Well, that’s that for the night,” he told them. “Sleep on it and we’ll work on your interviews tomorrow.” He’d certainly spend more time on prepping them than Arbalia, their Capitol mentor, last year. She’d given him barely half an hour before sending him on his way with an airy wave and the instruction to present himself as cocky and witty. _You’re something new for District Twelve, Haymitch. The people of the Capitol will love that._

Later that evening, at the house of Thalius Eland, he gritted his teeth and tried to keep from crying out at discovering just what being fucked hard by another man felt like. Right then he couldn’t help but wish the people of the Capitol loved him a little less.

He chewed some aspirin for breakfast, choked them down with enough coffee to make up for the lack of sleep. He tried to hide the stiffness in his walk and how he’d rather stand than sit. “OK,” he said, studying Larkspur. “So how do we play this with you? You’re funny, when you say more than two words.”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down at her hands. Graceful, ladylike, everything that was admirable and nothing that was deadly.

For her, he did his best. He coaxed her out of her shell bit by bit. Pretended to be Caesar Flickerman, complete with the stupid accent, and eventually her eyes lit up and the warmth of her laughter filled the room. “This is what we give them,” he told her. “You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re likable.” Maybe then they’d see what he did, that she was someone worth keeping alive. “You’ll do fine.”

“Are you OK?” She looked at him with her brows furrowed in concern. “You’re walking like you hurt yourself.”

“Me?” He waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, I’m fine.” Not like he could just pour out his heart to her. She had enough problems of her own to juggle already, and Snow made it clear that keeping his mouth shut about things was in the best interest of everyone’s continued existence. “Just tripped over something on the way to the bathroom last night in the dark. Bruised up my tailbone when I fell. Stupid of me.”

“You sleep with the lights on, Haymitch,” she said softly, still looking at him. “I’ve seen it from under your door.”

Shit. She’d outsmarted him there and caught the lie. Scrambling to cover, he thought of Angus telling him he’d have to learn to lie better in a hurry. It seemed that was the case. “OK. You caught me. I slipped in the shower because I still can’t get used to all the damn buttons and it got too hot and I was in too much of a hurry to get out of the way.” He grinned at her, forcing himself into what he hoped was the expression of a cheeky, unconcerned boy. “Don’t tell on me, huh? Big impressive victor brought down by some shower tiles. It’s embarrassing.” 

Her expression relaxed and she nodded. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she reassured him in a stage whisper. He wondered how he could have ever been like that, so willing to take something at face value.

“All right. Go see Honoria. She’s a pain but she knows what they want from you in presentation, so smile and nod.” He knew from talking to Maysilee the girls got lessons in how to walk in heels and long skirts, and how to sit like a lady in all that. Mostly for him it had been forcing him to not slouch and to keep his knees close together when he sat, and how to walk and not scuff dress shoes and showing him how to sit and not crumple a good suit. Though he hesitated to call it a “good” suit when it had been bright blue. No tie, at least. But too loose, of course. The shirt was baggy enough it practically looked like the puffy things from stupid old Capitol romance movies. Even before Taffeta dressed him out in things that looked good he’d known it looked ridiculous.

Dean slipped into the room silently and had to clear his throat before Haymitch noticed. He chuckled lowly. “Well, kiddo, if you move that quiet in the arena, that’s a plus.”

As for Dean, nothing he tried seemed to bring anything fierce or witty or cute from him. He tried to not get frustrated at the constant shy stream of “I don’t know” in reply. _You’ve gotta give ‘em something or else you’ve got no chance at all_ , he thought but didn’t say, because it would be like kicking a puppy. A sad, vulnerable little puppy that looked at him with that same hopeful look Ash had.

He sent Dean away after barely an hour, knowing he wasn’t helping him really at all but unable to stand it much longer and unable to see a way to push him into anything useful. “Just be yourself for them,” he advised wearily, knowing it was bullshit advice but he didn’t have anything better.

At the studio he dropped them off in the tribute line, trying to not look at how small they both were compared to the others. Then he and Honoria went to take their places in the audience and he tried to not have the panicked feeling they were all looking at him there and calculating what he would cost. Sitting there throughout the interviews, catching the glances and the smiles and the excited whispers of his name was its own little kind of torture, and he found he was gripping his hands tightly in each other to keep them from trembling. He wondered how many more buyers he’d have off this. But at least for tonight he was safe.

The interviews went by. He found out the One girl, Ruby, was hoping to gain the crown that her sister so nearly won, and she shot an gimlet stare right at Haymitch that was too like the stare Sapphire gave him right before she came at him with that axe. The cameras swiveled to focus on him and he realized it just in time to try to get the stunned look off his face and find something to say. “Hope _you’re_ smart enough to know when to duck,” he called lazily. Hardly the height of cleverness but the audience still chuckled for him. Snarky. Witty. Arrogant. Just what they expected him to be. 

Brutus was aloof, all eagle-fierce pride. Spinnaker was charming in that mysterious, sun-kissed Four way. The rest blended, and then Larkspur took her seat. 

Haymitch could see that she wasn’t ducking back in her shell which was good, and she was hitting the right notes, being self-effacing and graceful and sweet. But he glanced around him and saw they weren’t really watching. More people were paying attention to him in the audience than to her on the stage. Dean was a disaster. He stammered his way through even Caesar’s best attempts to help him.

He really wanted to sigh and put his head in his hands, but he couldn’t do it with them watching. He sent them back to the Training Center to get to sleep and went to meet the other mentors for the Victors' Social in the courtyard of Snow’s mansion.

The smell of roses was heavy on the summer wind. He was grateful some of the other victors took the time to introduce him around, let him see a little technique about gaining sponsorships. From Chantilly he saw it was easy for One. She played up their grace and their attractiveness, reeled the sponsors in like fish. From how she was talking it seemed like most of them were repeat sponsors. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if One had a standing list of its supporters they counted on every year. “I’m surprised to see you being so friendly with Haymitch here,” one purple-haired lady said to the two of them. “After all, he did cost your district the crown last year.”

“Bygones!” Chantilly said with that soft smile of hers, putting a friendly arm around Haymitch’s shoulders. “He’s a good sort, really, and well, good on Twelve for getting a mentor finally, am I right? Oh, I think that’s Niello waving me over, will you pardon me?” She gave Haymitch a nudge in the ribs and hissed at him, “Good luck.”

He looked at her as she disappeared, tried hard to not feel insulted at the casual way she’d talked about Twelve, then looked back at the potential sponsor. “So, I hear the punch here is really good?” Wonderful. He was sounding as awkward as Dean now.

She laughed. “Haymitch, you and your little jokes. You’re a nice lad and so I’ll spare you the time of trying to seduce me with your wiles.” He tried to not read far more into that than there might be, but his mind instinctively wanted to go to the worst possible place. “Your girl Larkspur seems to have some potential but she probably won’t last. If she’s got more than I think and makes it past the third day, do call and we'll meet to chat.” She handed him a business card. Purple, of course. He glanced at the name: Pansy Porter. He put it in his pocket and nodded as she went on her way. 

Chaff collared him next and now he saw how it was for the dark horse districts. Some solid rejections. Mostly just business cards with a standing offer to call once the tribute proved to be worth something. “This really sucks,” Haymitch mumbled to him while they were having some punch out by the hedges. 

“Welcome to mentor camp,” Chaff told him in return, teeth showing white against his dark skin when he gave a rueful grin. “It'll be especially tough to bring people right to the table tonight in your case. They don't know you yet, and sorry, but your kids ain't a pair of dazzlers either.” He said it bluntly but not cruelly and Haymitch was at least thankful for that.

“Yeah, sure, I heard ‘em. ‘Bring me another tribute like you from Twelve who can actually do something in an interview besides act sullen or stare at their own feet and I’ll consider it’,” he softly mimicked one cranky old bastard. 

“Mark on those business cards what day or what number of tributes remaining they said to call ‘em on,” Chaff said helpfully. “You don’t want to call too early and piss them off, or call too late and miss the chance to use the money to best advantage.” 

He nodded, acknowledging that gratefully. “You at least got a few gamblers willing to take a chance on your boy Husk.”

“You can’t get sponsors without a track record of victors and you can’t get a track record of victors without sponsors. Ain’t it a bitch. But hey, at least the punch is good.” At that Haymitch cracked up, unable to help himself. He liked that Chaff didn’t look at him like he was nuts when he tried to explain and actually thought it was funny too.

That helped when he spotted Thalius Eland and later Gloriana Frill, and he tried to stay out of their sight. He couldn’t bear to approach them, try to plead for money from them. He doubted fucking them would have helped open their wallets for his tributes anyway. They would consider paying for him and paying for sponsorships two separate things without any ties to each other. He didn’t even want to ask himself what he’d do if he found an instance where the two were connected. 

At the end of the night he had no definite sponsors and several dozen business cards with day indicators ranging from three onward, and indicators of tributes remaining from twelve to four. He had the uncomfortable sense some of them had been sizing him up as a purchase and wondered if that was true or if he was just becoming paranoid about it, and neither seemed like a good option. He also had the sense that Dean was an immediate write-off to almost everyone and Larkspur was in much the same position as any vaguely promising Twelve tribute: wait a while and see. 

It wasn’t much to go on. But it seemed like he’d done well with that much--or rather that little--last year and a field that he admitted was twice as dangerous, no matter what snarky comments he’d given Caesar Flickerman to the contrary during his interview. Maybe Larkspur would somehow surprise him. If she could just get through a couple of days, she’d be golden. He tried to not think about Dean, not wanting to be realistic like he probably should, and mostly just hoped in his nightmares tonight Ash’s face didn’t get replaced with Dean’s while Haymitch watched him burn.


	8. Chapter 8

Before dawn broke he was already awake and dressed, out in the living room waiting for Larkspur and Dean when they stepped out of their rooms, wearing the simple prep robes the stylists had left for them to wear until they got to their Stockyards. He looked at them and decided no, they hadn’t slept too soundly. He hadn’t last year, spent most of the night up talking to Maysilee about nothing of real consequence. He hadn’t slept much last night either for that matter. Standing on the edge of going into the arena was bad enough. Standing on the edge of sending two people in and knowing they depended on him was even worse.

“Here.” He turned to the crystal bowl of fruit on the table, grabbed two oranges, and pressed one into each of their hands. Larkspur tried to stick it in her pocket. “No, eat that right quick before you go. Even if you think you can’t. They won’t let you take it into the arena.” They obeyed, silent as a pair of ghosts. At least it would be a little something in their stomachs to start.

After they were finished, he tried to think of something useful. “Don’t run for the Cornucopia.”

“But you all did last year,” Dean protested, a look of confusion on his face.

“That was unusual. Most everyone was distracted by the arena so there was an opening to get in and get out before it turned into a melee.” He’d snapped out of his own daze to see everyone around him still entranced, and made the choice to go for it. “And you both saw that Heather didn’t make it out alive.” Dean flinched at that. “Don’t make a run in for it,” he repeated. “If there’s any kind of cover, head for it. Find yourself a place to hide, find water. Stay away from the other tributes long as you can.”

Larkspur nodded. “Anything else?”

He chewed his lower lip a second, realized he was doing it and stopped because he could sense it was making them nervous to see him anxious like this. “I’ll be able to get you sponsors and supplies as the field dwindles. Just...until then, stay alive.” Only they could do make that happen. Until they proved they were more than early cannon fodder, his hands were tied. 

They went to the roof where the hovercraft was waiting in the darkness. He watched them walk into the transport beam, the slender merchie girl and the little Seam boy. At least one of them he’d never see alive again.

In his room he put those business cards in a neat file, in order of how he’d call them up. They’d have to survive two days or outlast twelve other tributes. That was the first glimpse of opportunity they’d have at a sponsorship. The odds got significantly better if they made it past the fifth day or made it to the top eight. He’d made it nine days playing the stealth game and avoiding confrontation, living off rainwater and the food and water from the Cornucopia. He wouldn’t have made it much longer.

Taking a pass on breakfast except for more black and bitter coffee, he headed over to the Games headquarters. A Peacekeeper, wearing the familiar black beret signalling he was Games Security, gave him directions to Mentor Central. He was relieved to hear he wouldn’t be stuck in the central control room with Seneca Crane, the new Head Gamemaker, while he gleefully conducted whatever symphony of batshit crazy violence he had in mind this year.

He was one of the early arrivals. Blight touched two fingers to his brow in a little salute of greeting from the Seven station. Old Woof Jones from Eight was busy talking to Mags by a buffet table of food and drink on the back wall, including what looked like a hefty selection of crystal liquor bottles.

There was one huge wall of what must have been at least twenty large television screens-- _oh_. Twenty-four. Of course. He wondered how that had worked last year. He headed to the spot in the arc of control stations marked with the bold black “12” on the front. Two seats there. He rested his hands on the backs of the well-padded chairs and debated. Left? Right? Well, if he took the left at least he’d be sitting next to Chaff or Seeder and the open place would to his right, at the end of the arc. Left it was. Whoever it was he mentored into a victory could suck it up and accept being on the end.

The station had a telephone, of course, a set of headphones, and several screens of its own that were currently black. All right, so he’d figure this out. From across the way, Blight glanced over at him and made a thumb-and-forefinger “pick up the telephone” gesture as he was talking to Beetee. 

Complying with that, a tinny Capitol voice requested of him, “State your district and name to receive network access.” 

“Uh, Twelve. Haymitch Abernathy.”

“Authorized tribute mentor status for the 51st Hunger Games confirmed for Haymitch Abernathy of District Twelve. May the odds be ever in your favor.” With that the screens flickered to life, or at least into power in some cases, because the arena cameras weren’t switched on yet. He smiled ruefully as one screen lit up and announced that his available sponsorship funds were a big fat zero.

“At it early,” came a voice behind him. He swiveled in his chair to see Hannibal Destin of Two standing there. Well, at least he’d known better than to just sneak up unannounced. Haymitch hated when people did that, and people in Twelve learned pretty quickly it wasn’t the best idea. “That’s admirable.”

“Morning,” he said by way of greeting. He hadn’t seen Hannibal’s Games, long before he was born. The man had to be forty by now, though he was still lean and dangerous looking. 

Hannibal stepped closer, pointing to the jumble of screens one by one. “Arena cameras are the big ones, of course. They’ll automatically broadcast the best feed they have of your tributes to you. That one shows Flickerman and Templesmith and their commentary. Arena map with their relative locations--no, it will not show you the locations of tributes of other districts. Can't send them messages with what the announcers tell you either. Biostatistics on that one as measured by their tracker--heart rate, hydration level, that sort of thing. Sponsorship account records there. That’s a patch through to the parachutiers’ office so they can show what they’re putting together for you for approval. You can switch arena cameras but I suggest you not mess around with that until you know what you’re doing. Headphones are for audio, choose A or B camera feed via that switch. Gets too noisy in here with twenty-four feeds blaring.”

Haymitch nodded to him. “Thanks.” As Hannibal turned to go, he couldn’t help but ask, “And why is it you’re helping me?”

“The tributes will decide the Games in the arena, boy. Not fair for me or anyone else to gain an edge by keeping you in the dark when it comes to your duties here.” Right. So another variation on _No district rivalries among victors_ , though probably put through some kind of Two filter. Nobody from Twelve would have ever claimed the Games to be fair to start. “Oh, and there’s a lounge over there, has some couches where we can catch a break or a nap. Since you’re the only one from Twelve and have to be ready to jump into the fray anytime you’re probably going to be sleeping there as long as you have someone left in it.” His mouth curled up in a bit of a teasing grin. “Might want to make sure nobody’s busy in there first, of course.”

He tried hard to not react to that last one, just knowing Hannibal was looking for a boyish blush. He wasn’t going to get one after the week Haymitch had been through. “Got it.” He nodded, glanced at the screens, seeing nothing better to do at the moment, then got up and checked out the food table. Snagged some orange juice and a muffin, ignoring the blueberry ones. This one was studded with bits of chocolate and he picked at it, because it didn’t do his tributes any good either if he didn’t eat or sleep. He tried to not feel the weird disconnect of all that food back there when he’d be watching them on-screen starving. It was no stranger than all the food here in general compared to how it was back home.

The other mentors trickled in as the morning got going, nibbling at breakfast and chatting with each other until an aide poked his head in and informed them it was five minutes until launch time. That drove them all to their stations.

At one minute to go he slipped on the headphones and immediately all the murmurs and chatter from the other mentors were blocked out. There was only static right now. The cameras flickered on at thirty seconds and he could see them in their launch tubes, wearing the uniform of the year--a parka in Twelve's coal-black with a fur-edged hood, thick mittens, bulky trousers, heavy boots. _Oh, shit._ He glanced up to see almost nobody looked happy at that sight. 

The cameras followed as they were launched into a world of dazzling white, and the cameras panned around to show they were in a bowl ringed with mountains. _Volcanoes?_ he thought with some panic. Here and there the sight of something large and white was prowling. A few rabbits, white as the rest of the arena, hopped by. But he could see no trees anywhere for fires. Oh, shit indeed.

In his ear came Caesar Flickerman’s voice, “And it looks like it’s an arena that favors tributes with some cunning in survival this year, Claudius.” Screw _that_. Not unless someone was smart enough to know how to make snow burn. It favored those who could make the kills, and he had the dreadful suspicion Snow most definitely did not want a dark horse district to win this year. “Aside from the bounty at the Cornucopia, four caves in the mountains have supply caches, including firewood, and will make a safe refuge for those who can find them.”

Claudius chimed in, “And then defend them, Caesar, let’s not forget!”

The gong sounded and Larkspur turned on her heel and started floundering her way through the snow towards the mountains. The deep snow was bogging everyone down, but she was light enough to be making it at a better clip than some. _Good girl. Get out of there._

Then he looked over at Dean just in time to see him reaching for a backpack in the Cornucopia and he must have trusted his small size to help him skim over the snow fast enough to get in and out where the Careers with their bulk would struggle more. _Bad idea, but maybe you can pull it off..._ That lasted as long as it took for big Brutus to grab him by the hood, reel him in kicking and screaming, and run him through with the short sword that was probably the very first thing he had grabbed. Perfect strike, right in the heart. Haymitch’s eyes flicked down to the biostats screen, wanting it to somehow not be true, just as Dean’s heart rate stuttered wildly and then went flat. Brutus dropped him facedown in the snow and turned to his next fight.

One screen at his station went black and so did the corresponding one on the wall, the lower right corner. As he watched, two more screens up there blacked out as other mentors lost their tributes in the unfolding bloodbath and the churned-up snow around the Cornucopia began to turn a red that steamed from the heat of body-warm blood.

He reached out and turned the audio switch to A, to Larkspur, and tried to not think of how Dean called for his mother as he died.

Larkspur kept making her way towards the mountains as the bloodbath continued, and Haymitch kept watching as each new camera picked up her progress. Eventually by the middle of the afternoon the Careers had dispersed after strapping on snowshoes to make better progress towards the ones that had fled. Only the various district colors of the parkas and the blood that had frozen in hard red waves around the motionless lumps showed where tributes had fallen. 

The cannons finally sounded. He counted them. Nine down. Fifteen left. He looked up at the screen-wall and calculated the deaths off the blank ones. 3 girl. Both from 5. 6 boy. 8 boy. 9 boy. 10 girl. 11 girl. Dean. He watched the hovercraft retrieve Dean’s body, limp and tiny. Trying to shove it back down inside, feeling unspeakably tired, he turned back to Larkspur on camera.

Nobody else died that day. Larkspur made her way to the foot of the mountains and then huddled up under a rocky overhang for the night. It might not be warm but at least it was keeping her out of the wind and that would help.

Then Woof was standing in front of him now, eyeing him with something almost like sympathy in his blue eyes, gesturing for him to take off his headphones. Haymitch complied. “Hovercraft is coming in now with them. You’ll want to see to your boy.”

Putting the headphones down on the console, numbly he complied and followed Woof, along with Seeder, Beetee and Spark, Angus, Clover, the 5 and 6 mentors who he didn’t remember yet. They rode the elevator down to the basement, to the pale light of what was apparently the tribute morgue, where the bodies lay on steel slabs, still dressed in their uniforms. The melting blood-ice dripped through the drains of the tables to the central drain of the white-tiled floor.

“We take care of ‘em to send home,” Seeder told him softly, patting him on the shoulder in reassurance. “That ain’t something that should get left to the Capitol attendants.”

“Arbalia?” he muttered skeptically, not willing to believe the Capitol woman had bothered to care for the Twelve dead. The way Seeder didn’t say anything and gave him a sad little smile was answer enough, and he gave a tired nod. He wasn't surprised she’d left it to the morgue underlings. It wasn't like she'd actually cared about any of them.

Preparing the body was the usually work of the family back home. He hadn't done it for his family because he'd been knocked out with sleep syrup at the apothecary's house until the funerals, under his care for his badly injured hands and his agitated state. He doubted there was much he could have done to prepare bodies that were as burned as they must have been. Of course the Gordons would take care of the final arrangements and dress Dean in his burial clothes when Haymitch brought him back. But looking at the dead tributes on the tables, gore-spattered as they were, he understood why they did this. Nobody wanted to bring back a child to their parents looking like this. Seeing them dead would be hard enough.

So he unlaced Dean’s boots first and tugged them off. Stripped off all the blood-stiffened layers of clothing, cutting them off with shears as the others were because the limbs stiffened by cold and death made it impossible to just undress them. It didn’t matter. Nobody else was ever meant to wear these uniforms and in a way he was glad to destroy it. At least Dean’s eyes were already closed rather than being frozen open. He searched the rags of the uniform and found Dean’s token, a carved wooden dog. He wondered what it meant to him and who had made it--older brother? Grandfather? He slipped it in his pocket to give back to the Gordons.

Naked and dead, Dean seemed even smaller and more vulnerable than he had in life. Haymitch washed down his body, cleaned him off from where he’d either pissed himself in terror or lost his bladder control when he died, cleaned off the blood from his death wounds. He stitched shut the wounds on his chest and back, needing some lessons from Woof because he wasn't from the textiles district and his mother always had done all the mending so he didn't know how to sew. The stitches were clumsy at best but they did the job and closed up the ghastly wounds. At least his body was in good enough condition that his people could have an open casket at his funeral. That wasn’t much, but he knew it was a comfort all the same. Heather had probably been just the same last year, killed with a single stab. He knew from being invited to the funeral that Maysilee’s family had gone open casket, and managed to hide her death wounds with a pretty scarf wound around her throat. He was sure Dylan had been a closed casket funeral, burned to a crisp in the volcano as he’d been. His ma and Ash and Briar had all been closed casket, of course.

Brushing down a messy cowlick of Seam black hair, he touched three fingers to his lips in farewell and whispered to the dead boy, “I’m sorry.” Then he pulled up the white sheet to cover him and nodded to the morgue attendant to put him away safe in cold storage to preserve the body. 

“Name and district?” The attendant stood ready with the datapad, ready to formally enter it. Of course none of them remembered his name.

“Dean Gordon. District Twelve.”

“Please sign the body over to Capitol custody. We’ll release it again to you at the end of the Games.” The attendant turned the datapad to him and held out the stylus.

“Do I have a choice?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. If he did, there was no way he’d sign anything over to their custody. Not a body, not a living child. But he had no choice. Not in this. Not in anything that mattered so long as he was here. Stony silence answered him and he sighed, scribbling his signature on the datapad. His first failure as a mentor. He wondered what he’d say to the Gordons. He wondered how he’d answer for this when he died himself on top of everything else he already had to atone for in his life. He hadn’t killed Dean, but in a way, he’d let him die. 

When he got back upstairs he must have looked like shit because Chaff pressed a glass of something amber in his hands. “My girl’s still alive?” he asked, taking a sip and grimacing at the burn of it, seeing that her screen was still lit up on the wall. _My girl._ That had taken on a totally different meaning now from the boy he’d been.

“Still alive,” Chaff confirmed. Haymitch nodded and went to sit back down at his station, watching Larkspur shiver in her sleep. One day and nine tributes down. One more day and three more tributes to go before he could get her some kind of help.


	9. Chapter 9

He woke up gasping, the knife clutched in his hand to fend off the shadows that were closing in on him, and it took a few seconds for him to realize he was in the lounge of Mentor Central, where he’d curled up on the couch to catch a few hours of sleep. The shadows weren’t real and the lights were bright on his bleary eyes. “Awake yet?” Blight asked him with some amusement, being smart and standing at a safe distance in case Haymitch had come up swinging the knife. “Good. Now fuck off. Sun’s coming up, your girl’s still in it, and Clover and I have the lounge for a little while.”

Yawning and stretching, he passed Blight and rolled his eyes at Clover’s wink as she passed him. Pausing to grab a bottle of water, he sat down in his chair and popped the headphones back on. Larkspur was up and moving into the mountains, and he noticed with relief she seemed to be none too worse for the wear. That overhang had sheltered her well.

Glancing up he saw two more blank screens for the 3 boy and the 6 girl. He turned and reached over to tap Chaff on the shoulder, pulling off his headphones so they could talk. Chaff tugged off his headphones. “What happened to the other two?”

“Beetee’s boy froze. Poppy’s girl ran into the Career pack.” Haymitch nodded his thanks. Right. Poppy. That was the name of the woman from 6, the one with the wide eyes and yellow-tinged skin.

Eleven dead already. Just one more and he had a potential sponsor he could call up. He realized quick enough that was nothing to get excited over, and immediately felt the sick guilt of wishing someone else’s kid dead in a hurry so he could get some Capitol citizen with too much money and too little compassion on board. He looked up on the screen wall where the Careers were scouring the mountains.

He saw on her biostats that her body temperature was dropping a little low, but according to Claudius’ patter to the audience, she wasn’t one of the ones dipping into dangerous hypothermia. At least water wasn’t an issue with all that snow around. Mid-morning she found one of those caves they’d been talking about yesterday, stocked with a sleeping bag, some dry rations, and matches and firewood. Soon enough she had a fire going and her shivering was easing as she warmed up.

She dozed off, warmth for the first time in a day making her drowsy. He had a bad feeling when he was keeping an eye on the screen wall and saw the Careers reached a cave, but he was relieved it was empty.

The next one they found scarcely an hour later wasn’t. With a growing horror he saw as the bulky figures of Ruby and Brutus and the rest came into his view on his console and he hissed, “Shit. Wake up and get out of there.” As if she could hear him. As if she could escape the circle of them closed around her.

Larkspur woke up with a gasp much like his earlier, but the figures standing over her were all too real. “She’s mine,” Ruby told the others with a smirk, and kicked her in the ribs. The cry of pain was all too sharp over the headphones. “Well, Twelve? Gonna show me something worthwhile here?”

The other Careers just watched as the axe came out. When she chopped Larkspur in the gut first, just like Sapphire cut him last year, and laughed at the scream of agony, he couldn’t stand it any more. Headphones ripped off and slammed down on the console, he shot to his feet and shouted at Chantilly, storming towards her, “What the hell is this?”

She yanked her own headphones off and said back at him, “You think I get to pick who I mentor, Haymitch?” The calm way she said it just pissed him off more.

“Your district sure trained and approved that psychotic bitch as their choice!” That was the furthest thing from the random chance of the reaping ball like Twelve endured, and fuck One anyway for making someone like that their volunteer.

As he passed the Eight station, Woof caught him by the wrist in a surprisingly strong grip for being fifty-something. “Go sit down _now_.” He said the words in a tone that expected obedience. He nodded to a black-bereted Peacekeeper that Haymitch noticed only now was coming towards them, ready to break things up. “He’s fine. We’re all fine.”

Right. Victors didn’t fight each other. Wouldn’t do for them to want to kill each other or anything now that they’d survived the arena, precious darlings of the Capitol as they were. With one last glare towards Chantilly he went and sat back down. He didn’t want to put on the headphones and he didn’t want to watch but he forced himself to do it. She was the one in there suffering, dying a bad death. The only thing he could do was not be so much of a coward as turn away from it.

After fifteen minutes of it her face and chest were slashed all to hell with careful strokes of the axe blade, and she was barely breathing as the gut wound slowly, painfully was killing her. It was almost a mercy when Ruby finally ended it. The cannon fired. _I did this_ , he thought, watching Ruby toss her head and laugh that perfect trilling One laugh as she left the cave with the others, his hands clasped on the back of his neck and head bowed. _I started this last year and I threw more coal on it at the interviews and now she’s the one who paid for it._ This hadn’t been just the usual shit of the Games. It was ruthless vengeance and because the girl couldn’t punish him directly for killing her sister, she was hitting him the only way she could.

Well. He’d already been dealt plenty of pain by Snow for surviving--dead family, forced to whore himself out. This gesture from Ruby ought to be nothing on top of all that, but it wasn’t. Larkspur was one more innocent left to suffer because of something he’d done, and he wondered when it was ever going to end. Then he wondered if it ever would.

He gave a painful smile as he realized she’d been the twelfth death of the Games. So close to getting help. Close on the heels of that was the realization with both Dean and Larkspur dead, he was out of the running. He sighed, and put down his headphones. Better luck next year--the perpetual Twelve fate. He’d been so convinced that somehow he could make it happen. All that was left was to see to her body.

They brought in another girl’s body just as he was staring at the wreck of Larkspur’s face and chest after rinsing away all the blood, wondering how he could ever make those ugly gashes look like anything but a ruin. He winced hard at the gut wound, knowing too well how much she’d hurt before the end. The new arrival was apparently the girl from Eight, because Woof came down to deal with her. He wondered why it wasn’t Georgette, their female mentor, but maybe this was just something Woof did better. He’d been at it so long.

“I can’t figure how I can send her back to her folks like this,” he told the older man helplessly. 

Woof sighed. “You can’t hide it fully. But let me do the sewing and we’ll see how it turns out.” Haymitch sewed up her stomach. With finer thread and Woof’s neat, small stitches on her face, at least she looked halfway presentable. 

“Thank you,” he said to Woof with sincerity as he signed Larkspur’s body over. He nodded to the tiny Eight girl on her table. “I’ll help with her, if you want.” He would have just moved to do it without asking, automatically repaying the favor, but it struck him this might be something private that Woof didn’t want him intruding on. “If you want to take care of her alone, well...” He shrugged. 

Turned out Woof accepted the help and he was grateful for that. He knew it wasn’t necessary, considering the girl froze to death and thus preparing her was easy, so he knew Woof had agreed as a kindness. “It’s not Chantilly’s fault, you know,” he told Haymitch as he signed off for the girl. Sabella, that was her name.

“I know.” He still couldn’t help the feeling of hatred in him right then towards District One and the monster they’d sent for the arena. Maybe in a few days he’d apologize, but right now with everything inside of him in a mad turmoil, he felt like he’d choke on it.

He didn’t go back upstairs because he couldn’t face them and the Games right now. “Tell ‘em thanks for me.” 

“Come on back when you’re ready. Time like this, it’s not good to be by yourself.”

He nodded and said he would. When he got back to the Training Center and the too-empty Twelve quarters, he chucked a vase and then another. Unfortunately it didn’t make him feel any better. At least he wouldn’t have to clean out their rooms, since they had only Capitol-provided clothing in there. That would be the job of the Avoxes.

The little wooden dog and Larkspur’s beaded bracelet went in his drawer. Back in the living room, he picked up a book, intending to leave the damn television off and pretend the Hunger Games didn’t exist. Then the telephone rang.

Pinching the bridge of his nose with a grunt of irritation, he picked it up. Of course it was what he’d thought. Snow had warned him about this right back there in the rose garden. Both his tributes were dead and therefore he was no longer needed as a mentor for this year. That meant his social calendar was open again, and they were obviously wasting no time in filling it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fourteen tributes were dead by the time the faces displayed in the sky that night. Eight was out of it, of course, and Mags’ partner Carrick had Spinnaker and Meridia well in hand for his shift, so Woof and Mags were out walking the city night after getting some dinner. 

She won the 8th Games, and he’d won the 9th. She was mostly grey now. His dirty blond hair was mostly gone and the wisps left were silvering. They’d been through forty years of the Games and the Capitol. Been through the early years before sponsors and before spectacle, where it was just being dumped in a wilderness with weapons and nothing else. The years of vengeance where victory meant further humiliation of being openly auctioned off to whoever wanted to pay for a night. The Capitol downplayed that history, liked to pretend the Games had always been as they were now. Out in the districts they’d forgotten much of it, perhaps willfully so. The Capitol didn’t like to be reminded of those days. She and Woof knew better than to speak up and say it wasn’t so. 

Forty years of the Games. She’d married. He’d married. Raised families they talked about each year when they came back. But in some ways they were closer to each other than to their own spouses. They both knew all these quiet fades to death from freezing would not be well received by the people of the Capitol. “Not a good year for a show,” she said to Woof. 

He gave her one of those faint smiles that told her he was pleased with that notion. “A better death than most. It won’t happen for yours, though.” His girl froze to death late that morning, just never woke up from the night before.

“No, it won’t.” They’d be killed in combat when the Career pack finally tore itself apart, and with only a few non-Careers left to hunt down, that point was coming soon. But the survivors were well-entrenched in the mountain caves so at least they probably wouldn’t freeze, unless the Gamemakers flushed them out to force conflict. It’d happen sooner or later. Just a matter of when. They talked low and soft, so anyone watching might think it was the intimacy of old lovers. Well, they'd been that once, but it wasn't love they were talking now.

“How’s the new boy?” she asked him, because he’d been the one to see Haymitch Abernathy last, down in the morgue. Still so painfully young in many ways, how he’d just about attacked little Chantilly this morning, wearing his grief and his fury for his girl tribute like a coat for all of them to see. Taffeta was right. He needed the usual minding like most young victors, aye, while he learned the way of things, but he needed some looking after as well.

“Oh, now, really?” Woof sighed, shaking his head.

“What?” She sensed what he was going to say, though.

“I know you wanted him to prove out and be something.” Of course she had. Of course he had too even if he didn’t want to say so, but she’d always been more of a dreamer while he was ever the pragmatist. But they’d all been waiting for that sign that would announce: _This is the time._ She could barely remember the world before the Games, and every year more of them that had been alive then died off. She wanted to see that world come back again. And she’d thought last year that Haymitch might be the person for the job.

“Was I wrong, Woof? A boy without guidance who could survive a doubled field is nothing to shrug at to begin. But then he showed he could outthink the Gamemakers.” That was the big thing, of course, that last. The way he took their Games and broke the rules, refused to be just another role in the pageant, using the very place that was trying to kill him in a way they’d never intended. Nobody mentioned that now, of course, if they could help it. The clips of his victory moment that had been played this year were carefully cut and edited to make it look like he’d somehow got hold of the girl’s axe and planted it in her skull himself. From how people talked on the street, it seemed like they’d already forgotten it had ever been otherwise. 

“No. You weren’t wrong. But you see where challenging them like that has gotten him. Family murdered. Making the round of Capitol beds as a hostage for his district’s welfare. Snow’s got him collared well and good.” 

“But collars can come off.” He was right, though, and she saw that, but she was reluctant to accept it. This had been the first spark of potential in years and she didn’t want to just let it go without a fight. She’d seen Haymitch on his Victory Tour and then chalked his tired demeanor up to the ordeal of the tour and the shock of still coming to terms with the arena. No different from any other new victor. Having him come back to the Capitol now, seeing how diminished he really was and hearing exactly why, had been a hard blow. 

“Maggie. He’s too soft,” he said bluntly. “He carries losses too hard and too personal--I saw him down there in the morgue with both his tributes. Rebellion," his voice instinctively went even quieter on that forbidden word, "means being ruthless enough to accept a cost in blood. Right now he’s lost enough he wants to just keep his head down and keep as many of his people alive as he can no matter what it costs him. He’s not ready. Unless something big changes he probably never will be.”

She sighed herself this time, disappointed but hearing the truth in his words. “Ah, well. Best we can do is try to not leave him alone to deal with things, bad as it is for him. He’s a victor, Woof. Can’t just throw him to the wolves.”

“No. But he’s obviously been marked as dangerous enough for special attention. And our beloved president won’t quit pushing him until he sees the boy’s broke to harness.” After a moment’s thought, Woof added grimly, “Or broke beyond fixing. So long as he’s removed as a threat, I don’t think Snow much cares which one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Husk froze to death shortly after midnight and with that Eleven was out of the Games. Chaff sighed and tended to the body. Then he headed back to the Training Center to get, if not a good night’s sleep, at least some sleep in an actual bed. He woke up Seeder long enough to tell her to not bother reporting for her shift in the morning. “At least he died easy,” she murmured softly. “Just went to sleep.”

“Yeah. Ain’t much, but it’s something.” He was just about ready to wave goodnight and head for his room where there was a knock on the door. In the time it took for him to cross the room and open it, it had turned into a flurry of knocks that sounded like someone was trying to beat the damn thing down. Maybe kicking it too.

He opened the door to see Haymitch standing there, leaning on the doorjamb. “Forgot my damn key.” The boy looked up and eyed him with a puzzled expression. “You’re not Honoria. What’re you doing up in Twelve’s quarters, Chaff?” Between the slurring, and the district twang, it took some effort for Chaff to understand him.

Haymitch smelled like sex and booze and the alarming iron scent of blood. Taking a look at him, Chaff saw his shirt was misbuttoned and only half-done up besides, and with it being thin silver silk like that he should have been wearing a jacket in the cold of a mountain evening. Of course, when he glanced down further, he should have been wearing shoes too.

His pupils were dilated, blown wide enough that they seemed eerie bottomless unfocused black, no trace of the grey iris. His skin was flushed like he was burning up inside. Even with the doorjamb to help hold him up he was weaving and bobbing in a way that made Chaff dizzy just to watch it. Obviously he was still flying from whatever shit whoever he’d been with had given him. “Where are you hurt?” he asked slowly and clearly as he could.

He grinned crookedly and thumped Chaff on the chest like he was trying to pat him on the shoulder and missed. “Oh, _that_? Not the first stripes I’ve taken.” A thoughtful look crossed his face. “‘Course, our Peacekeepers never fucked as a punishment for poaching.” Finally leaning too far he lost his balance on the doorjamb, and stumbled into the apartment. Chaff reached out and awkwardly caught him under his arms in a hurry so he didn’t end up planting his face on the floor, and yes, his skin was burning like fever, hot and dry, and his heart was racing far too fast. Chaff’s one hand clumsily brushed his back, feeling the sticky wetness of the blood that had soaked through the shirt. He realized Haymitch must really be high as a kite to not scream in agony at having the wounds touched. 

“Hey now. I don’t need a hand, Chaff. You’ve only got one.” He snickered like he’d made the joke of the year and in other circumstances, Chaff would be laughing right along with him. Instead he guided the boy down to his knees because the last thing he needed being that unsteady on his feet was to crash and hit his head, give himself a concussion on top of it all.

“Ma?” There was a rough whisper and Chaff saw those wide-staring eyes were now looking towards Seeder who had been standing there, Seeder who looked so much like all those Twelve tributes, Seeder who was Eleven’s only female of three victors so far and who’d had her years of being sold like Chaff never would courtesy of his missing hand. Seeder moved in, knelt down in front of Haymitch where he was looking at her with an expression shifting between shame and hope. He reached out and grabbed onto her and Seeder drew him in close. He butted his head against her shoulder and mumbled thickly, “Ma, I wanna go home,” and she said something softly back to him and then looked up at Chaff.

“Call Mags first and tell her he had a bad night on the town and he’ll be staying with us a few days. She'd better let Victor Affairs know he'll be unavailable,” she told him calmly, fingers stroking Haymitch’s black hair as she held him to her. “Then call Doc Sixleigh.” Chaff nodded, and he heard the first muffled sobs as he picked up the telephone.


	10. Chapter 10

Three days later he was up and moving, Capitol medicine already healing the whip marks on his back to tender pink scars. They’d already told him he had an appointment in Remake tomorrow afternoon to get them scrubbed. His back muscles felt a bit stiff but aside from that, he’d made a remarkably swift physical recovery compared to the two times he’d been whipped in Twelve for getting caught with game from his snares. Being a kid had just made them reduce the number of strokes.

Really, he’d wanted to laugh at the lecture from Doc Sixleigh to be more careful next time. “I realize this ‘Amp’ has gained popularity of late as a party drug, but really, Haymitch. You saw what trouble it got you into.”

He didn’t remember much of the night at that party, just too-bright flashes of it after they’d put that syringe into his arm with the Amp glistening ice-blue in it. He knew there’d been sex involved, though he had no idea how many took a turn before they moved onto other fun. He thought at one point he’d been laughing deliriously at the kiss of the lash, because pain had somehow become pleasure and pleasure became so overwhelming it was almost painful. 

Sitting there on the couch in the Twelve apartment with his head in his hands, he breathed roughly and tried to quell the sense of nausea. Honoria had left the place after Larkspur died to go back to her own apartment, job done for the year. As for Chaff and Seeder, well, he owed them for looking after him these last few days. He’d go back to Mentor Central tomorrow to wait out the rest of the Games, because it was better than sitting here alone, but he really wasn’t looking forward to it. Last he’d heard, from the morning update from Chaff, there were seven tributes left in it. Apparently they’d all hunkered down with supplies after a fierce blizzard so he was fairly confident the Gamemakers would be forcing their hand soon. 

There was a knock on the door and he rose to answer it, thinking it was probably Chaff or Seeder come to check on him. He’d ask both of them out for dinner. It didn’t repay the debt but it was a good gesture to make anyway. Instead, Chantilly stood there. “Yeah?” he said irritably. He hadn’t forgotten Ruby by any means. Lying there facedown in Seeder’s bed for the last few days and being told to move as little as possible, he’d pretty much had nothing to do but think about a lot of things. If there was any justice in the world she wouldn’t win the Games, but of course there wasn’t. “Come to tell me you’ve crowned your little sociopath as victor? Sorry I’m all out of confetti.”

“No. One’s out of it. One of those bear mutts got Sheen during the blizzard and Brutus killed Ruby two hours ago.” Same calm and unruffled voice as ever, and really, that was starting to annoy him.

“Well, ain’t that a little ray of sunshine, sweetheart,” he said cheerfully. He was using what he already thought of as the whore’s persona he was cultivating, the extreme of the cockiness and cleverness the Capitol so loved. It was something arrogantly amused and with a smile and words meant to cut, because he knew he needed a shield like that to keep something of himself safe. If he gave them everything--if he let them _take_ everything--he might as well be dead. “If that boy wins, I seriously will have to buy him a drink next Games as a token of thanks.” Never mind that “boy” was a year older than him. He felt about a hundred years old of late. He knew he was deliberately being an ass but after Larkspur and after the drugs and the whip, today he just couldn’t find it in himself to do better than to just hide in any way he could, no matter how rude. “So you won’t be taking a victor home this time, but hey, you’ve already got a surplus of ‘em running around. No big deal for you sweet little pampered Capitol pets in One to lose.”

From how feminine and sweet she acted, he would have expected her to be the sort that slapped, if she even allowed herself that much. The fact that her closed fist hit him right in his jaw was a surprise. Then as he crashed to the floor she leaped on him and got his wrists up.alongside his head and he flashed on a scene of _can’t move pinned down_ all ringed by that shiny Amp blue at the edges of his vision and he knew someone had done this to him that night. He let out a snarl of helpless rage at it as he fought dirty with about the only good weapon he had left and headbutted her right in the nose. Her head snapped back and she gave a cry of pain even as he threw her over and in an instant had her pinned in turn, and if he’d been smaller than the Careers last year now he was a bit bigger, a bit stronger, and that with his anger was all the edge he needed. 

This was how it was for a victor, this was why the Games-enforcing Peacekeepers with their black berets were there to prohibit them from fighting. They knew victors were a bunch of blood-maddened mutts that now stood constantly poised on the edge of giving in to an escalation of violence that would only really end with one or both of them dead. They’d killed and attack was now the first instinctive way to deal with anything like a threat.

He looked down at her, with her bleeding nose and her own pinned wrists, and the way she was looking back up at him with nothing soft and nothing sweet, only anger and defiance and it was finally something real from her. “Fuck you, Haymitch,” she said raggedly, and this time there was nothing teasing about it like when they were all out drinking. She started talking, too low for the bugs in the walls but intense all the same. “‘Luxury and arts district my ass’,” she mimicked his twang, “huh? You stupid little hayseed, you walk around thinking somehow because you're from Twelve and you grew up rough you get to judge the rest of us and you don't have the first clue about it. You know what happens when we deliver something we’ve created that’s inferior? They complain and we suffer. Doesn’t matter if it’s watches, fabric, jewelry, or tributes.”

“What?” He stared at her in confusion, not quite following.

“They select us for special training at six. The pretty ones. The talented ones. If you become a victor, it opens doors. Your parents get a promotion, or if they’re an artisan, more buyers for their goods here in the Capitol. Your siblings might get a better apprenticeship. We train in everything. Speech. Dance. Elocution.” He really didn’t want to admit she might be onto something in calling him clueless since he hadn’t the first damn idea what “elocution” even was. “Etiquette. Dress. Poise. And yes, combat. We can’t use plain swords or knives. That’s common, that’s boring, that’s not us. Bows, spears, sai, hookblades.”

“Riot batons,” he said, half as a question, taking the risk of letting go of her wrists and listening, really listening to what she was trying to tell him, starting to get a little sense of where she was going. Their faces were still bare inches from each other, close enough to talk soft. Close enough to kiss, but that was hardly what they were doing right now. She nodded. “Axes too,” he guessed.

“Tomahawks, actually,” she corrected him. “Only Seven uses those plain woodsmen’s axes. We learn to make a kill with grace and with style. Those that don’t live up to potential get washed out of the training. Those that do keep progressing, getting polished up until they shine. Until they’re perfect. Whatever it takes. I’m lucky compared to some. My breasts are real. I didn’t have ribs removed to make a smaller waist. My nose,” she touched it delicately, dabbing at the blood, “is real. All I needed was my teeth straightened and whitened and some highlights in my hair.”

“Your nose broken now?” Now backing off from the blinding urge to kill her, he felt awkwardly apologetic for it. He’d hit a girl, after all, and even if there was an understood exception in place for the Games, that just wasn’t how it was _done_ in Twelve. They’d really want to kick his ass if they heard about this. Never mind she probably knew several dozen ways to kill him.

“Don’t think so. Looks like they can’t even teach Twelve to break a nose right,” she mocked him softly, giving him a gleeful smirk that somehow fit better on her face than that constant doe-eyed smile.

“Lean in a little closer and say that again,” he grumbled at her, but without near as much malice now. 

“I spent most of my victor year learning about seduction techniques because Satin told me point-blank that was coming when I came back here and I'd be expected to be proficient.” He couldn’t help but wince at that notion. At least he hadn’t been expected to train for it, hadn’t spent months knowing it was coming. “Ruby was crazy for revenge, yeah, but she was Diamond rated and pretty and graceful and gave them a compelling story they wanted to see unfold in the arena--the legacy tribute whose sister barely missed the Quell crown last year.”

“They ate that story up with a spoon, that’s for sure.” He remembered last year they’d made a big deal about two legacy tributes in the running, two victor’s children. Sapphire and the other boy from Two, the one he hadn’t killed. No legacy had won yet, so it was always exciting when one stepped into the running. 

“The selection committee chose her because she’d give the best show and keep them satisfied with us for another year. Simple as that. Because we’re all born Capitol whores in District One, Haymitch.” There was a bitter, defeated knowledge in her words. “Our entire district exists only to bring them pleasure in any way. And when our goods or our tributes don’t measure up, we suffer. Orders dry up, exports don’t get bought, people get fired, and we do without until we manage to delight them again.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, and he actually meant it. He’d never really known much about District One, just felt their wrath last year on his Victory Tour. Like anyone else in the rural districts, all he saw was their glamorous Careers and how the Capitol loved them for it, and that meant how they seemed well-off compared to the way things were back home. In short, he’d assumed they were a bunch of coddled, spoiled brats who adored the Capitol that favored them. But the picture she painted was every bit as bleak and hopeless in its way as the worst of the Seam. Worse, perhaps, because at least there was some freedom in Twelve in being so uninspiring and thus overlooked. Nobody expected much of anything from them. Suddenly District One wasn’t who he hated. The Capitol who had them all desperate with fear under their thumb was the enemy. Realizing he was still half-pinning her with his weight, he shifted off. “Let me, uh, get you something for that...”

He got her a cold, wet rag from the bathroom and some of the aspirin. She’d moved onto the couch, and he gingerly handed them over before sitting down beside her. “Hell of a right cross you’ve got,” he joked, not sure what to really say because too much of it was far too serious.

“I’m sorry about your girl.” He sighed, nodded, not having much to say to that except just acknowledging the apology and accepting it. District One had made the choice to potentially sacrifice this year’s Twelve tributes to a bad end at Ruby’s hand in order to keep the Capitol entertained and happy. He didn’t much like it, still thought it was utterly fucked up in its way, but he could understand that it was born out of survival just as much as anything he’d done. Then she added, softer, “I’m sorry about what’s happened to you.” He felt her fingers on his jaw, lifting it to look at where she’d hit him. She kissed the bruise first, then she kissed his lips.

She wasn’t the lost joy of the smells of soap and sunshine in Seam black hair and clever grey eyes. She wasn’t even a half-buried guilty fantasy of tumbledown blond waves and laughing sky-blue eyes. But unlike Briar, unlike Maysilee, Chantilly was a survivor, still alive. She was here because she gave enough of a damn about him to tell him in person Ruby was dead. After enduring those months stripped of those who’d given his life meaning, he had the feeling friendly comfort probably would go a long way in the absence of the things that mattered.

Most of all, he saw from how she held back after he flinched at the kiss, waiting for his words or his move, that she understood how much it meant for this to be an offer and not a demand, to actually be given the choice to say _no_. But he was tired of being something that answered only to their call, being too afraid to make that choice. So instead he said _yes_ and kissed her back, and it was cautious at first but soon grew wild and fierce with the hunger for something real rather than all the Capitol lies.

It wasn’t love but it was something that was honest, something that gave him back a few pieces of something human where before he’d just been a thing, and so he was grateful for that. Not complete by any means but but at least less empty, not what he wanted but perhaps what he needed. After, he lay there on his rumpled bed and let her touch the scars on his back when she asked him carefully if she could see them. It should have felt a little weird, but he realized she wasn’t intrigued by the pain he’d endured, but rather by the rare sight of something imperfect. Something the Capitol hadn’t managed to erase yet to help deny it ever happened. She probably never got to see that back in District One, and of course here if any of her clients ever scarred her up they hurried to get rid of it. “Well, get a good look now, ‘cause they’ll be gone tomorrow,” he told her, looking back over his shoulder. “Remake already has me scheduled.” If they did a good job they’d maybe even be able to get him back on the Victor Affairs books in time before the Games ended. Oh, what fun.

She looked younger, looked more like her actual nineteen than she ever did with that studied sweet-girl veneer, brushing a lock of that cinnamon hair behind her ear and giving him a smile that wasn’t calculated at all. “Then I’m glad I got to see them now.” When he thought about it, he was glad she had too. She’d seen them, as had Chaff and Seeder. Even after the scars were erased, they would always know they had existed. “Just...quit looking at me like that, Haymitch.” Like what? All right, so he’d kind of been grinning at her, but was that a crime? “Don’t go and do something stupid like fall in love with me,” she told him, looking at him with suddenly solemn eyes. “That’s playing into their hands.”

“I know that,” he told her defensively, not sure where she’d come up with that.

“You ever wonder why there’s never been a legacy victor?”

A little confused by what seemed like an abrupt change in topic, he gave a faint snort of amusement. “Sorry, but that ain’t exactly a thing we bother to worry about out in Twelve.” Nualla Clearly hadn’t married and had no kids, and since then, obviously with no victors it had been no issue.

“It will be if you have kids. And they’ll want you to. I’ll be a representative for One as long as I’m still young and pretty and I bring in the sponsors and the buyers. After that, when my looks start fading, they’ll encourage me to stay off-camera. Settle down. Have those kids.” Hearing that was sort of depressing. At least in Twelve they’d congratulate him on growing old, not tell him to stay the fuck out of sight because he was getting grey in his hair.

“You want kids?” he asked, but no, not in the _you and me_ sense, not the way he’d sometimes touched lightly on it with Briar. 

“I don’t know. But they’ll encourage me to have them because I’ve proven I’ve got the stuff of a victor. If any of mine made it to Diamond in training they’d be our tribute, no question, because the Capitol likes to see a legacy in the mix.”

“Sure. For those of us not fucking insane enough to volunteer, the reaping ball sometimes has a funny habit of picking legacies anyway.”

“Yeah. So I had this little fact explained to me by Satin too. It’s a bad idea to marry another victor because that makes any kids we would have doubly likely to be pushed into it. Anyway, legacy or double legacy, that kid can’t ever win. It’s too risky for the Gamemakers to let it happen.”

 _You ever wonder why there’s never been a legacy victor?_ Understanding came over him in a rush, swift and painful. “Yeah, I see. One family proves strong enough to keep coming out with the crown, they start to become a rallying point for hope.” He sighed. “They’re suddenly a threat.” Obviously he’d seen from Snow just how swiftly and brutally those were dealt with. 

“Exactly.” She shook her head, looking fierce and angry in a way that despite the topic at hand sort of made him want to press her back against the mattress all over again. 

“Chantilly, seriously? You’ve got some damn weird notion of pillow talk.” He grinned at her, unable to resist the opportunity. She gave a huff of irritation and smacked him lightly on the shoulder, but she was smiling as she did it. 

Then she was all seriousness again. “The only way it’s really safe is if you’re like Taffeta and your kids are half-Capitol and can’t get reaped. But that’s about the worst thing that can happen to a victor.”

“She loves Cinna,” he argued. That was true and Cinna was a delightful kid, easy to love. But he knew it was a weak argument. The thought of being made into the pet of one Capitol woman, expected to live here and never return to Twelve at all and to have children with her, filled him with a glimpse of an even deeper level of horror than he already had. At least he was safe from the risk of that so long as there weren’t two more mentors for Twelve on hand.

“Of course she does. Cinna’s adorable. That doesn’t mean it’s not a shitty life for Taff. So. Don’t fall in love with me or anything. Don't expect me to fall in love with you. No future in it.” She snickered. “Even if it would give them fits trying to figure out what district to register our kids in.”

He chuckled at that. “I won’t,” he told her, feeling her breath warm against his skin. “I’m not gonna give them anything more they can use against me.” He said it casually but he knew with glum certainty that he really ought to make it true. He’d bother more about that later, because at least for the minute there was a pleasant and immediate distraction from all the troubles.

“Knew you were a smart one.” She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned down to kiss him again.


	11. Chapter 11

The Games kept going and the world kept turning. That wasn’t a surprise to him by now. It kept going last year when he thought there was no way the sun could keep rising in the morning, that the miners could be going to their work, when everything was so unutterably changed for him. Moments like that gave him a good smack of perspective on how little he actually mattered in the grand scheme of things.

He went back to Mentor Central the next morning, to find there were six tributes left. By this point so many of the districts were out of it that they’d turned the screen wall into one massive screen streaming the same cross-Panem feed everyone else was seeing back home for all the lame duck mentors to all watch and hear. Only the lucky few mentors still with tributes in the running sat at their stations with the headphones on, faces intent as they kept an eye on their particular tribute cameras and on their sponsorship balance sheets.

Where before there had been intent silence at the start of it, and after that quiet conversation and the like as districts got kicked out of the running, now Haymitch saw what happened when it was down to the wire and most of them were just waiting for the end.

It was like a party in there now. They drank. They sang drinking songs. They cursed and insulted each other, the more creative the insult, the more cheers it got. They roughhoused, not out for blood, just tumbling and grappling like puppies at play. Sometimes shit got broken. Some of them disappeared into the lounge in pairs or even threesomes for some alone time, though there were plenty of snickers at hearing the sounds of sex through the too-thin walls if they got too loud, and the Peacekeepers just looked annoyed. Poppy pulled out clear vials of morphling and Dusty from Ten pulled out a vial of Amp and Haymitch shuddered at that. 

Two weeks ago he would have looked at this and been sort of appalled. Now he understood that this was the way they found to deal. The Games had swallowed them all and they choked them down a little bit further every year. Every year they lost and still had to sit and watch the Games to its bloody conclusion hurt a little more. So yeah, this thing, part bacchanale and part orgy and part juvenile craziness was a little too loud and the laughs were a little too brittle. This was how they coped. They staved off madness at a mad world by blowing off steam in these final days, deliberately giving in to excess so they could go home acting halfway sane again.

He sat on his chair next to Chaff where they’d pulled them from their stations and leaned them up against the wall. “They’re gonna pull something soon,” Haymitch said decisively, passing over the bottle of some liquor from Seven that was burningly strong and tasted of cherries. “I mean, really. Look at it last year. They erupted a fucking volcano just to force us together.”

“Ratings ain’t showing up too good,” Chaff agreed thoughtfully. “Not a good first year for Seneca Crane as the new Head.” Oh yes, Haymitch had been made well aware his stunt last year caused a whole round of replacements among the Gamemakers. He couldn’t exactly find it in his heart to care at all.

Haymitch just laughed, vaguely enjoying the faint cherry-and-fire feeling burning in his throat and his veins that made it all seem to matter less. “His son’s also named Seneca, you know. Old Crane tradition. Apparently he’s actually Seneca the Seventh or something like that. Cute kid though. Ten, maybe? Thinks I’m _absolutely amazing_.” 

"Aw. Hero to the young'uns."

He chuckled lowly. “Kid actually has an action figure of me. I shit you not.” The spectacle of watching little Seneca play Hunger Games, and make a mini-Haymitch go fight to the death in imagined arenas with action figures of Chaff and Blight and Taffeta and others made him see that yes, even Capitol kids really were that messed up. He hoped to hell Taffeta could have the freedom to try and keep little Cinna halfway sane. He hadn’t seen any victor action figures among the toys at her apartment, at least, and that was probably a good sign.

“When did you meet Seneca Crane?” Chaff asked him with a lifted eyebrow. “Seneca the Sixth, I mean. Mentor meeting with the Head? It ain’t the usual thing, unless there’s some particular Games-related issue.”

“I didn’t,” Haymitch said sweetly. “I met Lucretia Crane.” He gave Chaff a wink. He leaned in and muttered, “She was terrible.” Chaff laughed and passed the bottle back.

On the third day after he came back, the Gamemakers flushed the remaining tributes from the safe haven of their caves with an announcement of assured death to anyone found in one the next day. “Desperate to salvage it," Mags told him wearily. So the four remaining ones packed up their supplies, toted some firewood along, and headed out into the cold again.

The fourth day he tried to teach Carrick, Mags’ district partner, to play chess. Carrick kept being drawn back to Mags and his console, though, because Spinnaker was still in it. Haymitch could hardly blame him for paying attention and doing his job.

Someone slid into the seat across from him. Haymitch recognized him as one of the handful of victors’ aides running around Mentor Central. They apparently thought it was an honor to help the mentors, to scurry around and run messages and fetch food orders and get more booze and clean up the broken chairs and the like. Which pretty much meant, as Haymitch understood it, there was a longstanding tradition of mentors occasionally making them do the most petty and inane shit possible, enjoying the chance to order someone from the Capitol around. But it wasn’t wise to treat them too badly, as the aides usually ended up as tomorrow’s Gamemakers, and as Haymitch readily comprehended the notion that having one of them think well of you could certainly be a plus for the future.

He was a few years older than Haymitch, with pale blue eyes and glossy brown hair done in dozens of tiny, intricate braids. “Didn’t catch your name earlier?” he asked, seeing a chance to maybe start jockeying for some advantage. _Play their Games. All of ‘em._

“Plutarch Heavensbee. Your victory last year was quite inspiring.” Like he hadn’t heard that before, like there was something incredible and admirable in outlasting forty-seven children and being the death of six of them himself. 

“Thanks,” he said shortly, sick of hearing that and sick of people who actually believed it.

“Would you like a match?” Heavensbee offered, gesturing to the chessboard. “It seems your fellow victors aren’t in that frame of mind right now.” Haymitch accepted because why not, it was something that passed the time, and it got him a couple good points with the guy. He lost by a narrow margin, playing too cautious with the notion of sacrificing any of his pieces and not quite seeing the way Plutarch seemed to be about ten steps ahead. The way the other man was studying him and the game he played made him feel a bit odd. It wasn’t like he was a chess master or anything with some kind of sophisticated game, he was just a kid Maysilee Donner quickly taught the game to last year in those unbearable evenings leading up to the arena.

“Beetee would probably give you a better game,” he shrugged, standing and pushing his chair back in.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind a rematch next year, Haymitch. Your game is quite fascinating.” Shaking his head a bit, Haymitch agreed to that and then told him to go do the lunch run because something about the way Plutarch was looking at him felt a little strange. Maybe he was just getting paranoid about it, but he really hoped it wasn’t that the other man had too much cash in his wallet and a taste for screwing victors. 

But then, Haymitch’s time was already pretty well spoken for. The scars had come off cleanly in Remake so he was back on the market and his nights were fairly full. Once he’d finished the appointment he’d go home and shower and call down to the One apartment, and Chantilly would usually come on up to see him unless she was still out on an appointment herself. They could lose themselves in each other for a few hours. Sometimes, if it had been a particularly bad night physically or mentally, they just held on to each other and skipped the sex. No, they weren’t going to fall in love, but they were helping keep each other a little more sane. That was something important too.

On the fifteenth day of the 51st Hunger Games, the final cannon shot rang out for Spinnaker, who’d lain on down among the snowdrifts on the tundra and frozen to death after his frostbite-crippled feet finally refused to carry him any further. Brutus, still scouring the mountains, never laid a hand on him. His face, when the cameras focused in on the new victor while the trumpets sounded, was desperate and almost stricken, not overjoyed. 

Haymitch was passing behind Hannibal to go get some water, and he heard him mutter, “Another Albinus,” with a frustrated sigh.

~~~~~~~~~~

Five days later, it was all tied up for that year’s Games. Brutus had been crowned, with Snow’s congratulations. Haymitch had said goodbye to the other mentors, grateful to know he would have friends here next year when the ordeal started all over again. Larkspur and Dean’s coffins were being prepped and Haymitch was waiting at the train station, ready to head home to Twelve with his first pair of failures. Sitting there and sipping a cup of coffee, he felt the full weight of two more dead settled heavy on him.

“Haymitch,” came a faint inquisitive growl. He glanced up to see the new victor himself standing there. First time he’d seen him in person rather than just on a screen. Big, as all Two tributes tended to be, he probably had four inches and forty pounds on Haymitch. 

“Brutus,” he returned calmly. “Congratulations.” Brutus sat down across from him, blue eyes guarded. “If you’re looking for some kind of advice on victor affairs,” or Victor Affairs for that matter, “I reckon Hannibal and Achillea both know what they’re doing. Or ask around Two. Plenty of victors there. Can’t hardly turn over a rock without one popping up.”

The lips pressed together in a thin line and Brutus’ head ducked. “Hannibal's told me already. They’re...not all that pleased with my victory here in the Capitol. It wasn’t...it wasn’t a good win.”

Haymitch sat there and shrugged, sipping on his coffee, “And you think I’ve got some great advice for you on that?”

“They love you.”

He let out a sharp, sarcastic bark of laughter. _Oh, they do love me. Vigorously. Nightly. Can’t get enough of me._ “What, their little case of Hay fever? They’ll get over it eventually.” At least he hoped that would be the case, though he didn’t want to think about how long it might take. “So what, this is about you having hurt feelings because most of the tributes froze and your big victory moment wasn’t flashy enough to make you their new darling?”

He could see the tension in Brutus’ knuckles, the way his jaw pulled tight. “No. I’ll go home as a disappointment.” There were plenty of sarcastic wisecracks to make about how disappointing the warrior cult of Two wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for a sane mind. But the whole lesson he’d gotten from Chantilly on the way of things in One was right there in his mind, curbing his tongue. He’d learned there was a lot to Panem he didn’t know. Maybe Two was like that, held up hostage to Capitol expectations. Maybe if their tributes didn’t kill in impressive enough fashion, all of Two would be in trouble for it.

“You’re mostly granite miners in Two, aren’t you?” he asked finally, remembering stopping there on his Victory Tour.

“It’s called quarrying,” Brutus corrected, “but yes, I suppose it’s pretty similar.” Suddenly he had an odd flash of sympathy for Two. Maybe if Twelve had shown a good early run at the Games rather than Two they would have become the district making killer Careers, just so a few of their children could hope to get away from that shitty life. Thirteen with its graphite miners was so desperate to get away they’d risked it all in the Dark Days and been wiped out for it. 

Two, Twelve, and Thirteen, all breaking a hard living out of unforgiving rock, a life of sweat and danger and aging and dying too fast. Thirteen got destroyed, Twelve was too beat down to fight back, and Two had apparently accepted the Capitol leash to keep their district safe. Considering he’d taken on Snow’s collar himself, he wasn’t sure he could point fingers. 

Brutus sat there in the silence, folded hands with one thumb awkwardly rubbing the other, not quite meeting Haymitch’s eyes. “You killed a boy from Two last year,” Brutus said finally. “You remember him?”

“Yeah,” Haymitch could hardly forget that, waking or in his nightmares. Either way, he recalled the Two boy, remembering the slippery hot feel of Remus’ blood on his hands, the way his eyes went wide as he realized he was dying. “Remus Thread. Big fella. Tried to stab me in the woods. I was quicker. So, what, you here to make my life hell for that or what?” If that was Brutus’ intent he could just get right the fuck in line behind a pro like Coriolanus Snow. 

Brutus told him, “He was the best of our year. He beat me last year in the tournament.” What tournament, Haymitch didn’t really know, but he wasn’t going to interrupt someone’s heartfelt confessions here. “He wasn’t meant to be in there last year. He came in second to Severus. But he’d have been eighteen this year, would have won the tournament and been our chosen male tribute, not me.”

“Trust me, the Quell fucked up plenty of plans,” Haymitch said with mock cheer, unable to help otherwise, because to say anything real and serious about the Quell would show how bad it had been for him. “He’s dead and you’re not, so apparently you’re that much better than he is.”

A shake of that auburn head and Brutus had the frustrated look of trying to explain something that to him seemed self-evident. “No, that’s the point! He was _better than me_ , and you were good enough that you killed him in combat.”

Now he looked and saw the dark flicker of doubt and guilt in Brutus’ eyes that put the pieces together. That spoke loud enough. Trying to somehow think like a crazy warrior fanatic raised from birth for honor and battle, he thought he finally followed something of the reasoning Brutus was too inarticulate to get across. _Remus should have been the one here this year. He was better than me and he died. A better fighter than me got defeated, so I shouldn’t be alive right now, and they’ll fault me for a boring victory, and they’ll all know even more I don't deserve to be the one still alive._ So this was apparently Brutus’ version of recognizing the sheer joke that was being the last one standing, that as victors they really all had no right to be alive any more after the things they’d done and seen. 

“So this is what,” he said slowly, puzzling it out, “you trying to challenge me to a duel? Beat me and you’ll somehow help justify your continued existence?” he asked. Two’s notions of honor were bewildering. Hadn’t there been enough blood already? Instead all he could muster was to feel sorry for him in a tired kind of a way. It was twisted logic but he understood it. The things done in order to be able to ride home to your district and answer to the duties that had been put upon you to keep your people safe--he got that, with a terrible numb certainty. Brutus wasn’t the only one going back knowing he’d failed his district. Two coffins on the train proved Haymitch utterly failed Twelve this year. 

It made his head spin. Remus tried to kill Haymitch and Haymitch killed him because Remus was trying to kill him. Then Aurelia tried to kill him because he’d killed Remus. And Maysilee killed Aurelia to keep her from killing Haymitch, or maybe he actually struck the death blow after Maysilee paralyzed her but the general point stood. Now because of Remus and a frozen arena, Brutus wanted to kill Haymitch or perhaps be killed by him since he couldn’t stand the knowledge that he was a letdown who was still somehow left alive. Wasn’t that just how it went for victors, their lives turning in a constant whirl of equal parts violence and shame. 

Brutus let out a sigh of relief, seeing that Haymitch apparently understood. “Ideally, yes. Or, more likely, I’d have you defeat me and at least die fighting. But I can’t do that. I’ve already been told victors don’t fight each other.” 

“Let it go, huh?” he said quietly, shaking his head at it. “We’re never gonna find out who’d win in that fight between you and me. Doesn’t matter. Go home to your family, Brutus. To your girl, if you have one. Or your guy,” because it had been a hell of a Capitol education this year for him. “Whichever. They’ll still be happy to see you alive.” And Brutus could thank his lucky stars that he and his Games were both too boring for the Capitol to bother with, because it meant he would never need to endure the touch of strange hands, never have to scrub the feel of someone off his skin. “You’ll start to figure out how to live with it next year.” He'd never be able to go regain his honor in whatever way he wanted, which was apparently further combat. Like the rest of them, he'd just have to cope as best he could.

Brutus nodded. “Maybe so.” 

Haymitch gave him a tired laugh. “I owe you a drink next year anyway for taking care of the District One girl, so call on me for that, eh? Better than fighting each other to the death.”

That hint of something came over Brutus’ composed features again, some sense of a thing left unsaid and pushed back down before it could really show. “She liked to play with her kills. I’ve really never had patience for that shit.” He raised his eyebrows and said, “But you saw, I killed your boy at the Cornucopia.” Almost as a challenge, but there was a sense of clearing the air.

“And I killed two of your tributes last year,” Haymitch answered, matching the expression. “You killed him clean. Did only what you had to do to survive. No blame for that among victors.” He couldn’t bring himself to exactly hate the other boy for killing Dean. He was a victor and they were all killers, and if they kept score of who killed who in order to stay alive, they’d all be divided from each other by hopeless lines. Better to just realize it wasn’t a district or a victor that was the enemy, but the Capitol, even if none of them would say it openly. “His name was Dean,” he added, as if daring him to say it didn’t matter.

“I’ll remember.” Haymitch actually believed he might. Two might be fairly nuts, but perhaps they weren't all psychotic. With that, Brutus nodded as if something had been satisfied between them, and got up to go. “Thank you.”

Haymitch had a thought, and before he could think better of it, asked him, “You knew them both? Remus and Aurelia?” A nod answered him. “Tell me something. The two of ‘em. They were...together? In love?”

“They were engaged before the Games claimed them both,” Brutus confirmed unhappily. “When that happened, we all knew they’d never talk about it on camera, because being upset about it might make them look weak to sponsors.” That was about as depressing as anything he’d heard. Poor bastards, so bound up in expectations of Two stoicism they couldn’t even mourn that properly.

“Thanks,” he said, looking away. 

“They would have been glad they didn’t have to face each other at the last,” Brutus told him. Haymitch wasn’t sure for him that felt like that much of a saving grace.

When he looked back again Brutus had gone. He shouldn’t have asked because now it would eat away at him, this confirmation of the senseless tragedy of a wedding they’d never been able to have and how he’d been the one to end their lives and dreams. But he’d heard how Aurelia screamed Remus’ name as Haymitch killed him. He’d felt how she attacked him, suddenly overpoweringly fueled by an emotional power far beyond the simple wounded district pride he’d wanted to believe it to be. He’d heard how her breath sobbed in his ear from more than just exertion as she prepared to cut his throat.

He hadn’t needed to ask Brutus because deep down, he’d known. He knew the sound of a broken heart and a life suddenly made empty and meaningless because that was just how he’d screamed watching that old Seam house burn.

Finishing the last swigs of coffee, he headed for the train. He’d have to answer for Larkspur and Dean, but as the train pulled out of the station he still couldn’t help the feeling of relief and escape. He was going home, getting away from being Snow’s puppet every waking moment. At least he had the next eleven months among his own people to try to let it all heal up some before he had to do it all over again.


	12. Chapter 12

As usual, in Victor’s Village, the house was beautiful and well-lit and big and empty. As he always did, Haymitch walked through it now seeing all the things that should have been part of a life. The living room had the pretty green sofa and chairs and curtains his ma had picked out of the catalogue, work-rough fingers stroking the fabric samples as her eyes shone with disbelief, as if she could hardly believe something so fine could belong to her now. _It’s about time you got something nice,_ he’d told her, glad at least something good came of all of it.

 _This isn’t how I’d have wanted to get it, baby,_ she’d murmured softly, trying for a smile. She lived less than two weeks past his victory but even that was long enough for her to know her eldest boy now slept with a knife and the lights on and that he woke up screaming. When that happened she’d send Ash downstairs to the kitchen for a while, come and hold him, consoled him like he was five years old again.

Ash had been so damn excited to have his own room, his own bed, instead of having to share with Haymitch like it had been ever since he got moved out of his crib. He’d never gotten to sleep in that bed with its neat blue bedspread.

He knew he ought to clear out their things. It had been a year and there were people back in the Seam who’d probably be grateful for their old clothes and the like, let alone the new stuff they’d never gotten to use. But he couldn’t bear to do it just yet. 

It was too quiet. It had been too quiet in the Twelve penthouse most of the time after Honoria left too, but the Avoxes were there too. He hadn’t paid them much attention with others around before that. They wrote him notes on the notepads they carried with them to communicate, but sometimes he saw the two of them together with their hands waving gracefully through the air. Clover had told him it was hand-speech, the way Avoxes talked to each other. He’d watched it once, mesmerized at how words and conversation and the stuff of life and meaningful relationships could exist even in the silence that had become too big a part of his life. 

When they glanced at him staring at them, and he realized he was basically eavesdropping on them, he’d apologized. “It’s beautiful, that’s all,” he said with some embarrassment, because that was true but he didn’t want to explain everything he was thinking.

With that, Rika and Cicero started to teach him a few hand-signs here and there, all of them furtively aware of the surveillance so not risking too much at once. She was from Three originally. He was Capitol. He hadn’t found out more because he knew Avoxes were traitors and they didn’t want to say too much right now. They had their tongues taken from them and he was an orphan whose body got sold night after night. All three of them prisoners in their way, enslaved and made unable to protest, for committing acts of defiance. Like he did with the other victors, he was now coming to think of the Avoxes as friends too. 

He walked outside and stood on the front porch of his house in the summer night and looked at the empty blackened windows of the other houses around him, and he wished the silence was only that of Avoxes rather than the absence of everything. He was the only thing living in this whole place, too beautiful and too lifeless. In the distance down the hill, a few lights still flickered in the town. In the Seam they’d be on candlelight if anything, but mostly to bed early to conserve the candles and to be up for the shift at the mines.

He’d handed Dean and Larkspur back over in their plain wood coffins, and managed only an agonized, “They’re dead, I’m sorry,” as if they hadn’t known their children were dead after watching them get slaughtered on television. They hadn’t asked him to the funerals. He wasn’t surprised. He was sort of relieved if anything. He’d been to too many funerals last summer anyway.

It had been a week since he came home and unlike last year there was no celebration on the return of that train. No celebrating the return of only dead kids. He did his shopping in town and the Hob, didn’t say much to people. Not much he could say. He knew full well how he’d failed. There was no judgment and no blame, not openly, but he thought he could feel it in the gazes of a few people at least. Others looked at him with sympathy or the simple bone-deep weariness that was as much Twelve as coal dust.

So he was surprised when Jonas Hawthorne came up the path the next day. “What’s the news?” he asked, relieved. If one of his old friends was here it couldn’t be all that bad.

“Deanna’s getting married,” Jonas told him, accepting the glass of lemonade Haymitch offered.

“Really?” Deanna Hawthorne was one of Jonas’ many cousins. “Damn, congrats on that. Who was she stepping out with? Lukas Taft, right?”

“Hay, Lukas and her were a done thing last fall,” Jonas said. “It’s been Fred Griffiths ever since.”

He looked down at his lemonade and felt like somewhere between burying his family and now, the trek between Victor’s Village and the Seam had become an actual borderline. Sure, he’d kept to himself a good bit for a while but had he really been so out of it that even after he started spending time with his old friends again last fall, he didn’t even know a little thing like that, where he’d been a part of the Seam and its rhythms for so long? “Fred. Sorry.” He gave a half-hearted smile. “Got it confused. Dee’s always had ‘em flocking to her anyway, right?” Jonas was kind enough to let that pass and laugh, because it was true enough but they both knew that wasn’t the real reason. “‘Bout you?” he asked Jonas. “Got a special girl?”

There was a flicker of something there but whatever it was, he didn’t tell Haymitch who it was. That awkward silence hung there again. “So anyway,” Jonas said, gamely trying again. “Dee saw you play Jamie’s wedding, and you’ve really gotten pretty damn fine with that fiddle of yours. She wanted me to ask if you wanted to play hers and Freddie’s. Week from tomorrow.”

“Hell yeah.” He grinned, relieved to hear that. To be able to do something good for his people, to show them that he was still Seam and he was still one of them filled him with the sweetness of gratitude towards Deanna Hawthorne. It felt like being told he could finally come in from the cold. “Tell her she’s got herself a fiddle player.”

“I’ll do that.” Jonas finished his glass. “Best get going.”

“Ain’t a chance you can stay a bit?” He hoped it didn’t sound as desperate as he thought it did.

Jonas gave him an almost apologetic look. “Wash day again and you know Ma’s gonna need me to lift all that shit. Lorna’s off handling the trapline today ‘cause of it.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, I can’t much keep you from that.” It was stupid but it was on the tip of his tongue to ask if he could join in and help them out. He’d loathed laundry day just like every Seam kid, of course, and pissed and moaned about it to Jonas and Burt and Briar. Now he simply threw his stuff in a washing machine and pressed some buttons. But to be in the middle of it again, the lye soap that stung in any tiny cut on your hands and the clumsy old wringer and the way your arms ached at the end of the day from the heavy, wet clothes, was to belong in a way that he felt the ache of losing the same way Chaff must feel the loss of his hand. 

Jonas nodded and went to go. “Hey. Tell me something,” and he rushed through it before he could think better of it. “They don’t...what’s the...are they blaming me hard on Dean and Larkspur?”

At that, Jonas looked a lot like he’d been well caught in a trap he’d rather lose a foot in to escape quickly rather than endure sticking around long enough to be released. “We hoped, OK, but nobody’s blaming you there. We know you ain’t a miracle worker, Hay. Especially not in your first year trying to bring ‘em home. We know you did your best.” He glanced away, and his voice lowered as he said, “Look, it’s just...there were some pictures of you on the television, all right?”

He felt like he’d been sucker punched. They wouldn’t show _that_ on the television, would they? Not here, anyway--he knew from the other victor-whores that some of them were forced to make pay-to-view videos for Capitol citizens. “What kind of pictures?” he asked, his words strangled.

“Just Capitol shit of you in your first year there. You dressed up fancy, talking up some Capitol bigwigs. Out at a club with some of the other victors looking like you were having a good time. That sort of stuff. Some people were wondering if...well...if you sometimes forgot you were there for Twelve and maybe didn’t take mentoring serious enough.”

How he could feel both rage and relief all at once was a mystery, but somehow it happened. “No, Jonas, I didn’t fucking _forget_ I was there to help Twelve. They dressed me up nice so people there would take me seriously. Talking to Capitol bigwigs? Brushing elbows with potential sponsors and trying to talk them into handing over some money to keep our tributes alive. As for going out with the other victors? You’ve got no idea what it’s like, the things I...” He realized in his rant he was careening wildly towards saying far, far too much. He shut his mouth, breathed a deep breath, and tried again. “Mentoring sucks, Jonas. Especially because nobody there much wants to give Twelve the time of day, let alone a sponsorship. I blew off steam a few times with the others. Not at any point I could have been doing anything for Dean and Larkspur. Most everything I did while I was there was to try and help Twelve. You’ve gotta believe me.”

“I do, Hay. I do.” He didn’t see any kind of lie in Jonas’ face, or hear it in his words. That was something definitely thankful. “You just asked, that’s all, and I’m telling you what some people were saying.”

“How many is ‘some’?” he asked through dry lips. How many of his own people had been so quick to turn against him?

“Just a handful,” Jonas soothed him, apparently seeing how upset the thing was making him. “The cranky bastards who find a worm in every apple. You know the sort. We all saw your interview about Dean and Larkspur. Nobody doubts you felt it.” Of course they’d shoved a camera in his face on his way out the Mentor Central door after handling Larkspur’s body. “And their families said you took good care of the bodies for ‘em. Didn’t just leave ‘em like Arbalia used to do. We know you tried. Ease up, boy, and relax.”

“Yeah, of course. Sorry.” He shook his head tiredly. He wanted to make some remark about the Games, but this wasn’t the Seam or the woods, and he was pretty sure they were listening in. “I’ll be at Dee’s wedding, and tell her I’m looking forward to it.”

“Will do.” With a smile and a wave, Jonas disappeared back down the hill to his life of a little sister out running traps and laundry day with his ma. Haymitch turned and went back into the silent house. 

~~~~~~~~~~

He played the wedding for Dee and Fred and he felt damn great doing it, playing requests and watching the wedding dances. Surrounded by laughter and joy and hope, drawn back into the fold as he’d so longed to be. He belonged again tonight, was one of them, Seam even as they were, a black-haired boy who’d been born to the life of the coal and the fiddle and he would always understand it. This was where he’d come from and to know they still saw him that way was a relief.

Of course, the flow of strawberry wine that everyone was drinking freely got him feeling just a little less on edge to boot. He wasn’t about to complain about that. It wasn’t like he’d had enough to make his fingers clumsy on the fiddle. He felt good.

So when Deanna’s uncle Willem sat down with his own fiddle and shoved Haymitch out into the dance circle with a laugh and a, “You’re too young to sit the whole night out, damn it, so go make some girl smile,” he did. Danced with the bride and with Lorna and with Hazelle who thankfully didn’t look just like Briar had at fourteen, danced with any girl who approached and there were plenty of them, and he felt alive and giddy and almost happy.

They danced half the night away, and after the toasting they teasingly serenaded Dee and Fred off to their wedding bed with a bawdy song or two. After that he packed up his fiddle and started up the path through the Seam, whistling the fiddle tunes softly to himself. He was grinning like an idiot.

“Haymitch!” came a soft call for him. He turned to see Perulla Banner. The apothecary’s pretty daughter, the one who’d helped tend his hands last year. The one who tentatively asked him about her best friend, the golden-haired merchie girl who died in his arms, and had quickly backed off, realizing his own loss was still bleeding fresh.

“What’re you doing up this late?” he asked her. “Hanging around the Seam, to boot?” It wasn’t a place merchies usually came. Definitely not at this late, lonely hour.

“I was at Nan Turner’s. Her kids have the measles pretty bad and I was caring for them until they finally got out of danger.” She hugged her shawl tighter around herself. “I was just heading back.”

His ma raised him right and so he found himself offering, “This late and all, you want me to walk you back?” With any luck she wouldn’t bring up that particular topic. It had been a year. She’d probably let it go by now.

She nodded in relief, falling in step with him. Of course she hadn’t let it go. “Haymitch...it’s been a year,” she said softly. “Darriel Mellark was courting her, and he never talks about her. Liam doesn’t either,” the baker’s other boy, the one that he'd heard had been stepping out with Perulla. “Maribelle was her _sister_ and she just gets migraines and takes to her bed when I ask. Nobody will talk about her. Nobody. She was my _best friend_ ,” her breath caught and wavered, “and it’s like she never existed.” Her blue eyes turned to him, pleading with him. “I know you cared about her too. And I know how much you must miss your family.”

Like that his good feeling evaporated and there he was in the arena again, holding the hand of a dying girl and hearing her gurgle out her last breaths. He looked at Perulla, seeing the grief and the need in her, seeing some answering echo of his own unbearable solitude. The way nobody talked about his family any more either. It tugged at him.

So what? He could easily see how this could go. The way she was looking at him said plenty. They’d talk now about Maysilee and about his family, and they’d maybe become friends, the merchie girl and him, to help bridge each others’ loneliness and loss. Maybe someday he’d kiss her. Maybe someday he’d ask her to marry him. Maybe someday he’d dance with her to the sound of a fiddle, seeing her in her white dress looking like a princess with that honey-gold hair. Maybe someday he’d carry her across the threshold while their friends sang for them and they’d feed each other pieces of toasted sweet-bread, and there would be laughter and love and passion instead of silence in that too-big house. Maybe someday there would be kids too, either Seam dark or merchie gold, but precious and loved all the same.

At what point in that fucking fantastic fairy tale did he actually sit down and tell her the truth? His family died in a fire that was no accident because he got arrogant. He was probably going to fail Twelve’s tributes every year they weren’t spectacular, or spectacularly lucky, or both, because if they weren’t there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to sway any sponsors. He’d come home from the Capitol every year having been forced into the beds of numerous other women, and men too, to keep Twelve safe as he could. In loving him, in marrying him, in maybe having children with him, she’d make herself a target and become just more leverage for Snow to use against him. To love him would be only a lot of hardships and danger. When did he tell Perulla that, or any of those countless girls he’d danced with tonight, who’d probably all be willing to marry him in a heartbeat with his good looks and his victor’s wealth? 

But in that moment, he hungered anyway for Perulla who was reaching out to him across that deep and dark gulf of loss, and what they might someday have because of it, with an intensity of longing that seemed unbearable. Because facing it now and realizing he should never have a wife and children, and trying to accept it even as it ravaged him mercilessly, about brought him to his knees.

So he forced himself to give up even that spark of hope, knowing it was for the best, knowing that was just how it had to be so nobody got hurt. “She’s dead, ain’t a thing that’s changing that,” he told her roughly, and turned away before she could see how he was wavering. “Here’s your house. Good night.”

He thought he heard her stifled, choked sobs as he walked away, and he wanted to turn back so much it hurt. Instead he hurried until he couldn’t hear her any more.

As he passed Peacekeeper’s Row he saw a girl approaching one of the houses. What she was there for, with her ragged clothes and listless walk, was all too obvious. He didn’t know her but she was so young, maybe fourteen. Last year he’d had other women come knock on his damn door in Victor’s Village trying to get him to buy them, because they knew he was one of the richest guys in town. Back then he’d just been horrified for his ma’s sake, and just sent them all on their way with money in their hands. This year, actually being a whore himself and knowing the shame of it, the sight of this girl made him feel even sicker. 

It didn’t matter that he was better fed and better dressed than her. They both knocked on the doors of strangers, ended up naked and humiliated, allowing themselves to be fucked in any way their buyer wanted in the sheer name of survival. “Hey,” he hailed her quietly. She turned to him, startled, Seam grey eyes too big in her too-thin face. “Here, you take this.” He fished in his pocket and drew out all the coins he had left there after giving Dee and Fred a gift and paying for his dances with her too for their housekeeping nest egg. He pressed them into her fingers.

Her eyes went wide. “That’s good for the whole night, Haymitch,” she told him, and of course she knew who he was, and hurting from Perulla and the empty life he had to have, that hurt even more. “Whatever you want me to do. Anything at all.” 

Hearing her desperation, he felt like he’d throw up that strawberry wine right then and there. “I don’t want to sleep with you,” he told her. “Just...take that and get out of here. Go home.” He hurried away, but stopped a ways down the path to see her hide the coins in the bushes, probably so she wouldn’t have to explain them in her pocket, before she knocked on old Tiberius’ door. 

Grimly laughing to himself, he knew she was only playing the smart angle, taking what he gave her and still making whatever coin or payment in food Tiberius would give her for the night. It wasn’t like his money would keep her from Peacekeeper beds forever anyway. She might as well still treat this night like any other and just use Haymitch's additional money to ease things a bit.

He’d failed Perulla Banner and that girl both. Just like he’d failed Dean. Larkspur. Briar. Ash. His ma. Maysilee. Sure, he had the notion thanks to Snow he was apparently keeping all of Twelve generally safe by selling himself, but all he could see for specifics was that he hadn’t managed to directly save anyone from anything. So he walked home, aching with the knowledge that perhaps nothing he did could ever make a damn bit of difference.


	13. Chapter 13

Summer gave way to the burnished-fire colors of autumn, all copper and crimson and gold and orange. After next year, his friends were all safe from the reaping ball and bad as mentoring would be in general, at least it wouldn’t have that extra layer of horror tacked on. Though after Jonas and Burt and even the guilty spectre of Maribelle and Perulla were all safe, then there would be Lorna and Hazelle right in the thick of it, and Jonas’ two other brothers and his baby sister after that, and by that point, ten years down the road and more, his old friends would likely have their own kids and then it would be holding his breath knowing they’d be twelve soon enough.

So when Burt asked him to go out hunting to try out the new bow, he was happy enough to get away from his own thoughts. Though even as he yanked on his battered waxed canvas coat and grabbed an old backpack, and slipped under the fence after Burt, he realized this was the first time he’d been out into the woods since the fire. After the fire, by the time his hands fully healed, it was almost winter and even if he’d felt like he could muster enough effort, it was too late to start stockpiling anything anyway. Not that he’d needed to stockpile.

As they slipped through the trees, he tried once again to not think about fluffy golden squirrels and stinging butterflies and packs of Careers. This wasn’t that woods, too beautiful and too deadly. This was home. It was safe. He was safe here.

He set out a few snares to check later in the week, pleased that for having a year off, his fingers still remembered the way of it like second nature. “So who’s Jonas taking a liking to anyway?” he asked Burt, eager to get into the loop again and know the latest gossip. “He wouldn’t say when I asked before Dee’s wedding.”

Burt eyed him as he strung his bowstave. It was a dark wood imported from One, beautiful stuff with a nice grain. Light but tough and with a powerful draw, a man’s hunting bow rather than a boy’s. Haymitch gave the raw wood to him for his eighteenth birthday three weeks ago, pleasantly telling the Peacekeepers at the train station who asked what he was getting a load of exotic wood for that he was taking up woodcarving as another talent. “You seriously didn’t know?”

“Seriously, Burt. Do you think I’m asking you ‘cause I really do know?” 

“He’s been spending a lot of time this summer with Hazelle,” Burt told him carefully.

“Haze? She’s fourteen!” Not that Jonas was fifty or anything like that, not like the people in the Capitol who liked the idea of fucking a seventeen-year-old boy. But he was seventeen, and that was a difference from a fourteen-year-old girl.

“And he knows that and he’s told her ma and pa he’ll keep it respectful and chaperoned until she’s old enough. She’s pretty old for her age, Hay. Grew up in a big damn hurry after Briar died.” That was probably the truth. She was the only child left to the Wainwrights now, and she and Briar had been close. Burt had always been the one who could somehow make honesty go down smooth, so Haymitch didn’t bristle when he added, “Jonas probably didn’t say because he was worried you had some notion yourself and didn’t want to upset you.”

“She ain’t Briar,” he said tautly. “So no, I had no plans there.” Hazelle Wainwright would have been the last girl he’d go for, not because she was off-putting, but because the girl who wasn’t there would always be between them. It would be unbearable. He would always know exactly why Briar was gone and what role he had in it.

“OK. I’ll tell him it’s no issue so he can relax, don’t you worry about it.” He cocked his head and slung his bow over his shoulder. “How about you, rich boy?” he teased lightly. “Any special gal in mind?”

“No.” That was about the last question he wanted to discuss, given what he’d realized that night at Dee’s wedding.

“Bri was something special. We all know that. Just give it time.”

Now he really, really didn’t want to talk about it so he deflected it with, “And you? Still out with Reema McPhee?” He grinned wickedly. “Or are you robbing the cradle now too and going after Lorna?”

Burt laughed and shook his head, leading the way through the trails, pausing to check sign of something here and there. “Well, there is someone...” His voice lowered and he confided almost shyly, “I was gathering some stuff extra to sell to the apothecary this summer from my ma’s herbalist’s guide, right? And, well, don’t know how, but his daughter’s taken a liking to me. Perulla.” He said her name with something like angelic reverence.

His heart seemed to skip a beat. Oh yeah, he knew enough about sad and lonely Perulla Banner who couldn’t even talk about a thing that mattered to the merchie boy that had been courting her. “You probably made her smile with that voice of yours,” he said. That was Burt, who was Seam but still gentle and kind, Burt who had the gorgeous mockingjay-stunner of a singing voice, Burt who’d adore her and take good care of her. The exact kind of man she needed.

“Maybe.” The smile on Burt’s said it all: he was crazy in love with that girl. “Her pa wasn’t too happy, but, well, he seems to be coming ‘round on it.”

Haymitch clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. I know you’ll treat her right. She’s a lucky gal.” Maybe she wouldn’t have the nice things of a merchie house, but she’d have a real prince of a guy as her husband. That would probably do her more good than anything.

It was coming up on afternoon already when Haymitch spotted the buck, grazing in the bushes. They were a rare enough sight in these woods, so he excitedly yanked Burt’s sleeve and pointed. Yeah, he could try to get his own bow off his shoulder and take the shot, but they both knew Burt was a better shot. When it was probably seventy pounds of meat right there on the hoof for the taking, the best thing to do was make sure they got it rather than let egos get on the line.

Burt nodded and took the draw, eyes intently sighted on the deer. The arrow flew and hit the deer, and Haymitch could see it was a little too far back for the ideal fast kill. Burt said, “Aw, crap. I practiced with this bow last week, but obviously I ain’t got the adjustment down in full.” 

“Never mind it. We’ll track him on down.” With that he rose from his crouch beside Burt and started following the blood trail, spattered red against the fiery leaves. He found it less than five minutes later, standing there with its sides heaving and the liquidy wheeze of its injured lungs was too much for him to bear for another second, a sound that was all Maysilee and all Larkspur as they gurgled and drowned on their own blood. The knife in his hand that he’d intended to throw to finish it off stayed there as he moved in, slipped in around its last weakly thrashing attack of antlers and hooves, and slit its throat from behind. It finally collapsed, dead weight, as its warm red blood flowed out over his fingers, and he tried to not think of Esca and Remus and Aurelia and the rest.

“You really do like living dangerously, I tell you,” Burt told him when he came up a few seconds later. “What was that? I could have just put another arrow in it, or you could have thrown the knife. No reason for you to take the risk like that.”

Haymitch looked at him, looked at his bloody hands. No, this was something Burt was never going to understand. “No guarantee that would have done it. It was going down soon enough and this just put a quick end to things. That’s all.” He suddenly felt tired, all the excitement of knowing this was an incredible bounty of food for people in the Seam fading fast. “Let’s just get it butchered up before it draws a predator.”

Its innards felt just the same as anything else he’d butchered before in his life: a little rubbery, coils of it packed tight into the gut springing free as they cut it open, all greasy and slippery with fluid. But he hadn’t cleaned any animal since the Games, and one this big, it was the size of a person. He made the excuse of needing to go take a piss so he could go puke behind a tree and try to not think about how his own intestines had felt just like those deer guts, trying to slide out between his fingers. He fled from Sapphire then, all panic and adrenaline, leaving his own blood trail through the woods, stuffing his guts back in and dying by seconds even as he ran.

So when he came back, thankfully the gutting had been handled courtesy of Burt. He helped butcher the meat, and he told Burt, “You know I’ll help you haul the meat on back, but I don’t need any of it.” Mostly, he didn’t really want any of it now. He thought if he tried to eat it, he’d choke on it.

“Not even a steak or two? Might even say it’s technically your kill.”

He didn’t want it to be his kill. He had enough kills to his credit for a lifetime and then some. “Your arrow, your kill. Your venison, with my blessing,” he said with as good a smile as he could manage. Washing up at the lake, he was relieved the blood scrubbed off clean. He’d had to go through the arena with it caked all red-brown in the creases of his hands and spattered on his face because there was no water to spare for washing and rainfall only did so much.

They left the hide in one of the rock caches to retrieve later, along with some blackberries and greens. Two backpacks overloaded with venison was more than enough for the moment.

As they walked back towards the Seam, Calpurnia, one of the newer Peacekeepers, stopped them. “What’s in your backpacks, boys?” Burt shot him a faintly panicked look. Nobody from the Seam could have that amount of meat legitimately.

“Horse meat,” Haymitch said easily, taking the straps from off his shoulder, flipping open the top and pulling back a corner of the oilcloth so she could see the meat inside. “Just came back from the butcher.”

“Did you really?” Calpurnia said, eyeing both of them suspiciously.

Then, like an ugly white-mustached angel, old Callum the butcher passed by and he saw his chance. “Callum!” Haymitch hailed him. “You wanna tell Calpurnia here how I bought this horsemeat off you this morning?”

Callum nodded, barely missing a beat. “It’s true. Boy came by and got,” his eyes saw the two backpacks and with a practiced eye estimated it, “close to eighty pounds. Paid me up in full.” Haymitch just about sighed in relief. He had been pretty sure he could rely on the old butcher to cover for him. He’d always liked Haymitch, ever since he was eight and offered to trade some work after school in the shop for Callum teaching him what he knew about snares and traps.

“Why is it not wrapped in butcher’s paper?” She gestured to the oilcloth that they all wrapped their dressed game up in to keep the blood from dripping through their backpacks.

“Shit, Calpurnia,” Callum said, “you have any clue how much paper it would take to wrap that much meat? We don’t much hold with waste like that. I had those oilcloths on hand and I loaned them to him.” He raised an eyebrow at Haymitch. “Bring ‘em back or I’m charging you. I know you can afford it.”

“What do you need eighty pounds of meat for anyway?”

Angus had told him this, hadn’t he, that he’d have to learn to lie better in a big hurry. He only hoped it was a lesson he’d learned well enough in the Capitol to be able to bluff his way through this. He gave a bored snort, and said, “Yeah, well. We all know we ain’t getting Parcel Days for District Twelve like we did last year. So I decided I’d hold my own little food distribution here. Buy some meat. Share it around the Seam. You got a problem with how I spend my own money?” 

Calpurnia dismissed him with a flick of her fingers. “No. Carry on. But Head Peacekeeper Fog would like to once again remind all citizens that the woods beyond the fence is forbidden.”

“Sure, got it, thanks.” 

Callum caught him by the shoulder as they walked away. “Be careful, boy,” he said lowly. “It seems like Fog’s finally remembered there's actually a rulebook out there.”

“What?” Haymitch said, staring at him in confusion. Callum told him, and the backpacks were dropped and forgotten as he and Burt both ran for the square, as if they could actually do something about it.

Jonas and his family were already there, his ma crying hysterically, all of them staring at Lorna dangling in the wind, but her fifteen-year-old body was so light it seemed like she was just skipping on air. Haymitch stared at it. They hadn’t hanged anyone since he was a little kid. “What happened here?” he demanded from Phineas Fog, their Head. It wasn’t even realizing that perhaps he was the one person in their district who could afford to challenge him because they could hardly hang a victor, especially one expected to be on camera every year as a mentor. It was simply overpowering emotion, all rage and guilt and shock.

Fog didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Lorna Hawthorne had been caught and punished twice before for poaching. Death by hanging is the sentence given by Capitol law for a third offense.” Oh, bullshit. Haymitch knew plenty of people got off for a fifth, sixth, seventh offense with just a whipping. Now he glanced at Haymitch more directly and said almost defiantly, “As you’ve been flogged twice yourself in the last four years perhaps you should have paid attention to that particular penalty. Clearly I’ve been too lax in enforcement lately that the girl thought she could just walk out of the woods right in front of four Peacekeepers.”

Looking at Fog’s nervousness and at the weeping, ravaged Hawthornes, at Lorna still dangling there, he thought, _Did I do this?_ Had he gotten too sloppy, thinking that now that he was home in Twelve Snow wouldn’t bother with him, and this was a message to say that wasn’t so? Was this even his fault? Was it just Fog following the Code of Conduct to the letter because four Peacekeepers saw it directly and so he had to crack down or lose face?

He didn’t know. He probably would never know. He felt the terror of not knowing close in around him, smothering him, the sense that any time the coal quota went up or someone got flogged or hanged or tesserae were late, he would be left in a panic wondering what he might possibly have done, however small or insignificant, that somehow got someone else punished.

He mounted the scaffold and pulled his knife to cut Lorna down. For a wonder, Fog didn’t stop him and claim she had to stay there as a message to the others. She’d died hard, strangled slowly. Too light to break her neck in the drop, her face was tight with agony, and her wrists were torn up where she’d fought the bonds. He hesitated, wanting to end the awful sight of it but not wanting to just cut the rope and having her drop down into the dirt in front of her family. Suddenly he felt the rope go slack and looked down to see Burt had her, lifting her up. He nodded and cut the rope as Burt eased her down into the ground. They slipped the noose off her neck and left it lying there. Burt covered her face with his jacket. “That rope was official government property,” Tiberius protested feebly as they lifted Lorna to the shoulders to carry her back to the Hawthorne house. 

“So send me a bill,” Haymitch told him harshly, with a surge of hate suddenly wanting to kill him. Ahead of him, Burt was soothingly trying to prevent Daisy Hawthorne from looking at Lorna’s face right then.

Five days later he played Lorna’s wake at the family’s request. He was made for this, he thought, these low and sad mourning songs that came from his fiddle so easily, not the bright joy of weddings. Death and ruin and grief, that was all he could have.

Weeks passed after that. The first hint of frost was in the air. The silence of the night stretched out and cut him like the slow stroke of a blade. He was alone and he was coming to understand now that he was always meant to be alone. He hated fire after the old house burned, even feared it sometimes in his dreams, but it seemed like he'd somehow become a living flame himself. People looked at him like he was some kind of beacon of hope. It was only when they got closer they saw how fire burned. Because anything he dared to love and embrace would be reduced to ashes. Anyone that got too close at all would still get singed. 

Last year he’d been their miracle, a child sent away on a train and given up for dead and then brought back alive. Finally, after so many dead tributes, they got the boy who lived. They didn’t realize yet. A Seam boy went to the Games and what came back was a half-Capitol mutt that could unintentionally destroy them.

When he was little growing up with Burt and Jonas and the rest, they used to dare each other to go into the cemetery after dark and call the name of someone dead. There was the story every Seam kid knew that if you did that precise at the stroke of midnight their spirit would come and walk among the graves. 

When he was a boy that seemed terrifying, and they were never out so late as midnight. They wouldn’t have known it was midnight anyway since none of them owned anything in the way of a watch. The best they would do was creep in just as dark was falling, yell a name--Murray Duncan the murderer was always really popular, and calling for him was the height of daring for them--and then scurry back out, hearts pounding and laughing giddily at their own courage.

He'd be eighteen come April. He was most definitely up past midnight and he owned a handsome watch. Most of all, the thought of summoning spirits come to walk in the night didn’t scare him now. He actually sort of hoped it was true. 

Maybe it was the white liquor talking that he’d been making friends with lately, but he glanced at the clock and saw it was quarter to midnight. Picking up the bottle, he made his way to the cemetery, feet swift and sure despite his unlaced boots and despite the white liquor. He’d made this trek enough in the last year anyway in the daytime.

He didn’t look down at the ground where their bones lay beneath the grass. He’d seen them all buried and that was all he wanted to have in terms of concern with the actual bodies. He kept an eye on his watch and when it was midnight he huskily called their names. _Ash. Ma. Briar_. Questioningly, he added, _Lorna_ , seeing the fresh earth still on her grave. _Maysilee_ , with a glance towards the white-fenced tribute section and then _Dean_ and _Larkspur_ , buried in there at high midsummer when they should have been laughing and enjoying life.

He called out to his dead, their names a whispered chant and a plea for them to appear, begging them to come and show they somehow could forgive him for how he’d failed them all. But only the stillness of the grave answered him. He nodded at that, wanting to be disappointed but somehow knowing they wouldn't come. It was a childish hope to think they might. He hadn’t earned absolution from them. Maybe he never could.

The sun rose and he was sitting there with his back against the stone fence, sipping now and again on his bottle of liquor. At least here among the dead the silence belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with the story to the end, and especially for all of you who left kudos and kind, thoughtful comments on the work.
> 
> I'm turning towards the 3rd Quarter Quell next in a sequel of sorts to this one, now titled "Hope In the Darkness That I Will See the Light" so you'll see the return of some of the victors from this story as well some of the more familiar characters like Finnick, Johanna, and the rest.


End file.
